South Korean President Proposes Nuclear Summit With Kim Jong Il

South Korea's president last week offered to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il at "any time and anywhere" in order to break the impasse over the North's nuclear program. "I have no political reason to hold a summit (with Kim), but I can meet him at any time if it will help convince North Korea to give up its nuclear programs and resolve humanitarian issues," President Lee Myung-bak said in a television broadcast. Pyongyang on Friday renewed its claim that it is a recognized holder of nuclear weapons by pointing to a November report by the Federation of American Scientists.  "It's certainly curious that they would need our reaffirmation, but after two nuclear tests we feel it is safe to call North Korea a nuclear-weapon state," responded Hans Kristensen, head of the organization's Nuclear Information Project and a co-author of the report. He noted, though, that "two experimental nuclear test explosions don't make a nuclear arsenal" and that North Korea has yet to demonstrate that it is capable of placing nuclear weapons on delivery systems.