South Korea urges patience with North

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The international community should stay patient and avoid overreacting to threats by North Korea to restart the nuclear reactor that has fueled its weapons program, South Korea's prime minister said on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Han Seung-soo told Reuters the United States, China and others should use patient diplomacy to persuade North Korea not to back out of a landmark disarmament deal, as it has been threatening in recent weeks.

"Overreaction is not the response that we should give to North Korea," he said in an interview in New York. "We have to be very, very cautious in approaching North Korea at this juncture."

On Monday, North Korea asked the United Nations' nuclear watchdog to remove seals and cameras from its main atomic facility, Yongbyon.

Last week, the North said it was working to reactivate the plutonium-making Yongbyon complex, source of the atomic bomb program it had been dismantling since November under a disarmament-for-aid deal.

North Korea has said it would restart Yongbyon because it was angry at Washington for not taking it off its terrorism blacklist. In early September, it made minor but initial moves to restart the plant, U.S. officials said.

Washington has made clear it will only remove Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism once it has agreed on a mechanism to verify claims made about its nuclear arms production.

"NO UNUSUAL SIGNS" ON KIM

Han declined to comment in detail on reports that emerged this month that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had suffered a stroke and could be in declining health.

"We have received many unconfirmed (pieces of) information and reports in the past, but no unusual signs have been detected in North Korea so far," he said.

"Simply we do not know, really, so at this juncture it will be very inappropriate for me to speculate," said Han.

Han said that recent developments in the tortuous six-party nuclear diplomacy with North Korea mean that "the prospect is not as bright as it was several weeks ago."

But he said Seoul hoped a series of high-level meetings on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week could help recover diplomatic momentum in six party talks among China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.

South Korea for its part was still waiting for a North Korean response to calls for dialogue and offers of food aid from the seven-month-old government of President Lee Myung-bak, said Han.

"Whatever happens in North Korea, we would like to have more mature inter-Korean relations through dialogue, and we'll be always ready when there is a response to our initiatives," he said.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by Eric Walsh)