(2nd LD) Rice welcomes S. Korea's energy proposal for N. Korea.

SEOUL, July 13 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice welcomed Wednesday South Korea's proposal for North Korea to swap its nuclear program for massive power aid, saying that it could resolve the communist country's energy needs without proliferation concerns.

Three days after North Korea agreed to return to the dialogue table on its nuclear arms program, South Korea made public its proposal to provide the North with 2 million kilowatts of electricity annually if it renounces its pursuit of nuclear weapons. "In the June 2004 proposal, we recognized that the North Koreans have energy needs ... the issue is how those energy needs will be met, particularly in the face of significant proliferation concerns about nuclear energy in North Korea," Rice told a joint news conference with her South Korean counterpart, Ban Ki-moon. "That is what is so useful about the South Korean proposal." South Korea's unification minister, Chung Dong-young, briefed North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on the plan in Pyongyang on June 17. Chung quoted the communist leader as saying that he would "carefully study" it. Rice arrived in Seoul late Tuesday on the final leg of her Asia trip that also took her to China, Thailand and Japan. When she was in Beijing, North Korea announced that it would rejoin the stalled six-party nuclear talks after more than a yearlong boycott. Rice said the issue is now whether North Korea is prepared to make a strategic decision to abandon its plutonium- and uranium-based nuclear programs. "Nuclear programs mean nuclear programs. Period," Rice said, referring to the North's alleged highly-enriched uranium (HEU) program. Washington claims Pyongyang admitted to having it, but the North has denied the U.S. claim. This difference has been one of the biggest obstacles to resolving the nuclear problem. There were reports that the U.S. agreed not to raise the HEU issue in exchange for North Korea not demanding that the six-party talks be turned into arms reduction talks. Rice denied these reports.

Although there were no clear signs that North Korea would make new concessions in the upcoming negotiations, Rice said, she is "optimistic" that international efforts to ...