Anchor: North Korea’s chief nuclear envoy says the first step in resolving the North’s nuclear issue begins with the U.S. scrapping its hostile policies against North Korea. Our Kim Soyon has the details.

Report: North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho attended on Friday the first seminar session of a three-day academic forum under way in New York. The event is being hosted by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

A source says that while giving a speech on peace and security in Northeast Asia, the North Korean official said Pyongyang’s nuclear development is due to Washington’s hostile policies.

South Korea’s chief nuclear envoy Lim Sung-nam also attended the forum. Lim said North Korea properly implementing agreements it reached with the U.S. during recent talks in Beijing is the short cut to resuming the six-party nuclear dialogue.

Lim also said South Korea proposed inter-Korean talks, but the North regrettably did not respond. He said once cross-border ties improve and the six-way talks resume, dialogue on establishing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula can begin.

The North Korean envoy, meanwhile, urged the South to implement past inter-Korean declarations.

The source also quoted participants from the U.S. as saying that North Korea-U.S. relations can improve only after progress is made in the North’s denuclearization.

Representatives from the six countries of the six-way nuclear talks each gave a speech during the first session of the seminar on the topic of peace in Northeast Asia and security initiatives.

The closed-door seminar to discuss peace and cooperation in Northeast Asia runs through Friday, local time, and the results of the discussion will be released later that afternoon.

The South and North Korean nuclear envoys could also both attend another conference on Saturday hosted by the U.S. National Committee on American Foreign Policy.

Kim Soyon, KBS World Radio News.