Obama ready to help non-nuclear N. Korea

Speaking to reporters at the end a week-long Asia tour, Obama said he and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak agreed the North must end a pattern of provocations that simply ended up with demands for more concessions but never resolved the central problem.

The two leaders also pledged to work to secure approval by their respective legislatures for their own free trade deal, signed more than two years ago. Lee said he was ready to discuss the main issue holding up ratification — opening up the auto market.

“Our message is clear. If North Korea is prepared to take concrete and irreversible steps to fulfil its obligations and eliminate its nuclear weapons programme, the United States will support economic assistance and help promote its full integration into the community of nations,” Obama said.

The talks were among the least problematic for Obama on his Asian tour that started in Japan, where divisions remain over the location of a U.S. military base, and also took in China, where he barely bridged divides on trade, currency policy and Tibet.

Obama and Lee have piled pressure on the destitute North by targeting its finances and telling Pyongyang it will win massive rewards if it abandons its atomic ambitions.

“The thing I want to emphasise is that President Lee and I both agree we want to break the pattern that existed in the past, in which North Korea behaves in a provocative fashion, and then is willing to return to talk ... and then that leads to seeking further concessions,” Obama said.

He said he would send his first envoy to North Korea on Dec. 8 to press Pyongyang to return to talks, frozen for almost a year, with regional powers to give up building a nuclear arsenal.

Analysts said he would not have agreed to it if he was not sure Pyongyang would reciprocate by returning to talks.

One area of conflict between the allies has been a free-trade deal struck under President George W. Bush and yet to be approved by legislatures in either country. Studies said it could increase their $83 billion a year in two-way trade by about $20 billion.

Obama said on Wednesday he wanted to iron out remaining issues with Lee on the trade pact and that the agreement could benefit U.S. exporters.

“I want to get the deal done,” Obama said in an interview with Fox News.

Asked if he thought the agreement could be passed next year, he said: “The question is whether we can get it done in the beginning of 2010, whether we can get it done at the end of 2010. There's still some details that need to be worked out.”

South Korea insists it will not renegotiate the deal, the biggest trade pact for the United States since the NAFTA accord of the mid-1990s with its immediate neighbours. But Seoul has left the door open for discussions for side deals on areas such as the auto trade, a sticking point in U.S. Congress approval.

“If automobiles are a problem, we are in a position to discuss them again,” South Korea's Lee said.

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