Former President Kim Dae-jung is asking U.S. President George W. Bush to engage North Korea in direct talks and to make a reliable offer of compensation to the North in return for nuclear dismantlement. Kim made the comments while delivering a speech on peace on the Korean Peninsula at the Olof Palme International Center in Stockholm in Sweden. The former president said he believed Washington could resolve the nuclear issue by offering the North a guarantee of non-aggression and by lifting economic sanctions against the communist state. That's versus the U.S.'s current stance of steadfastly demanding that the North first commit to nuclear dismantlement and corresponding international verification. Kim said negotiations involving a simultaneous give-and-take are necessary as the U.S. and North Korea hold a strong distrust of each other.