S. Korea urges N. Korea to resume unconditional talks

South Korea's president urged North Korea on Sunday to stop stoking tension, saying engagement with the international community will serve the reclusive communist nation's interests better than missiles and nuclear weapons. Pyongyang has cut off government-level talks with Seoul and halted joint projects in protest of Lee's hardline approach, which includes suspension of his liberal predecessors' policy of sending unconditional aid to the North. "What protects North Korea is not nuclear weapons and missiles but South-North cooperation and cooperation with the international community," Lee said in a nationally televised speech marking Korea's independence movement against Japanese colonial rule. "No one should tarnish stability and peace on the Korean Peninsula. That will never succeed." The South Korean president called for quick resumption of talks between the two Koreas, still technically at war because the 1950s Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.