North Korea is making peace overtures because sanctions are biting harder than expected but there are no signs it is willing to give up nuclear weapons, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak said Tuesday.
Lee said nations negotiating with the North must stay united to thwart its attempts to win tacit acceptance as a nuclear-armed nation.
The president, in an interview with Yonhap news agency and Japan's Kyodo News, said Pyongyang is beginning to feel the pinch of the tougher United Nations sanctions imposed after its May 25 nuclear test.
"I believe North Korea was thrown off because these measures are having a stronger impact than earlier anticipated," Yonhap quoted the conservative leader as saying.
"As a result of North Korea facing such a crisis, it is taking somewhat reconciliatory gestures toward the United States and South Korea to avoid the situation.
"But it is still not showing any sincerity or signs that it will give up its nuclear ambitions," Lee said.
In an unexpected volte-face following months of hostility, the North last month made peace noises to Washington and Seoul.
It freed two US reporters after ex-president Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang, released five detained South Koreans, eased border curbs for visitors from the South and dropped demands for huge pay rises at a Seoul-funded industrial estate.
Leader Kim Jong-Il sent envoys to join mourning for former South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung. The envoys also held talks with Lee, whom Pyongyang previously reviled as a "traitor" and US sycophant.
Earlier Tuesday the two Koreas exchanged list of relatives for a family reunion programme later this month, the first for two years.
Yet the North also claimed this month that it was in the final stages of completing uranium enrichment, and was also building more plutonium-based atomic weapons.
Lee said the North's strategy of continuing nuclear development while improving relations with neighbours was an attempt to regain access to international assistance and secure tacit approval for its nuclear programmes.
"That is why member countries of the six-party talks must redouble their efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions through a unified strategy," he said in the interview.
The six-party talks group the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States. The North quit the forum in April after the United Nations censured its long-range rocket test, and has instead sought direct talks with Washington.
Washington said Friday it was prepared to talk directly with the North but only to bring it back to the six-nation talks.
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