S. Korea won't send food aid to N. Korea

South Korea refused to send food aid to North Korea until its communist neighbor starts dismantling its nuclear weapons program.

Four days of Cabinet-level meetings in Seoul ended Friday in a vaguely worded joint statement rather than any substantial agreement.

"Both sides agreed to further study issues aimed at promoting peace on the Korean peninsula as well as reconciliation and cooperation between the South and the North," it said.

South Korean media have voiced concern that the no-aid decision could further chill relations between the divided Koreas.

The South decided to delay a shipment of rice to the North until after Pyongyang moves on its promise during international arms talks to close its main nuclear reactor.

Last year, the North's delegation angrily pulled out of similar reconciliation talks after Seoul rebuffed its food aid request.

Seoul had promised the rice would be delivered by late May. But the timetable was thrown into limbo after Pyongyang missed an April deadline to close the Yongbyon reactor and let in U.N. nuclear inspectors _ part of a deal it made in exchange for energy aid and political concessions.

South Korea's Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said it was "absolutely imperative" to fulfill the nuclear deal "for the sake of coexistence and co-prosperity of the Korean people."

North Korea's No. 2 leader, Kim Yong Nam, affirmed the North's intentions to shut the reactor down, but only after a dispute over frozen assets is resolved. At issue is North Korea's desire to reclaim funds from a Macau bank that was blacklisted by the U.S. in 2005.

North Korea's money was freed earlier this year, but the North has not withdrawn it, apparently seeking to receive it through a bank wire transfer to prove the funds are now clean. The U.S. had alleged the funds were tied to money laundering and counterfeiting.

Kim Yong Nam said Washington has not explained the hold up in the transfer.

"There is so far no direct message from the U.S. what the problem is with the release of money," Kim Yong Nam told a visiting German parliamentary delegation in Pyongyang, according to its head, Hartmut Koschyk.

"When this momentary obstacle is eliminated, we will fulfill our promise immediately," Kim said, according to Koschyk. Koschyk added that Kim appeared confident "that the U.S. would fulfill its moral obligations."

President Roh Moo-hyun, in an interview with The Associated Press, said Seoul would continue to use aid as leverage to press the North to disarm. South Korea has drawn criticism at home and abroad over its "sunshine policy" of continued engagement even as Pyongyang holds onto its nuclear weapons.

"The fact that the Korean government is practicing the 'sunshine policy' toward North Korea does not mean that we forfeit all rights to take issue with North Korea's missile launches and nuclear test," Roh said Thursday.

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Associated Press Writer Michael Fischer contributed to this report from Pyongyang.