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The emerging gap comes after media reports that North Korea has started to reassemble the Yongbyon nuclear plant, protesting at a delayed removal from a U.S. terrorism blacklist, a move that could jeopardize international efforts to denuclearize the communist country.
In response to the reports, the U.S. State Department confirmed that North Korea had begun to move stored equipment at the nuclear complex, but said the country did not appear to be trying to rebuild the facility.
"Our understanding is that the North Koreans are moving some equipment around that they had previously put into storage," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at a briefing on Wednesday. "I don't have a whole lot of details beyond that," he said.
Hours later in Seoul, however, the Foreign Ministry said that North Korea has translated words into actual action to rebuild the nuclear reactor, expressing "serious concern" about the move.
"We are very much concerned about the recent developments and urge North Korea to resume disabling and return to negotiations," South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told a press briefing on Thursday.
"As North Korea is translating words into actual action, we express concern over it, and close consultations with related nations are underway," Yu said.
The North's move is "highly regretful at a time where we must exert stronger efforts to wrap up the second denuclearization phase," he said, warning that nobody would benefit from the deadlocked six-party talks' process.
The diplomatic chief also said Pyongyang notified Washington earlier this week of its decision to reactivate the Yongbyon plant that the country shut down a year ago under the aid-for-disarmament deal.
The North gave the notification on Tuesday to U.S. personnel stationed at the Yongbyon complex before starting to move the mothballed equipment back into place, according to ministry officials. "Seoul also received this notification from the U.S. side later that day," an official told reporters.
North Korea last week announced that it had stopped dismantling its nuclear facilities and threatened to restore them, as a "countermeasure in a situation where the United States violated the agreement," referring to Washington's failure to take Pyongyang off its list of terror-sponsoring nations.
The North said a "grave obstacle" to the settlement of the nuclear issue has been created as the United States refused to carry out its part of the agreement.
The Bush administration has delayed its action on removing Pyongyang from the terrorism blacklist, saying the North has yet to agree on a comprehensive verification protocol for its nuclear weapons programs.
But Yu cautioned against "overreacting" to the North's move, pledging to continue negotiations and close cooperation with dialogue partners. "Overreacting is not appropriate to manage the situation," he said.
Asked about alleged differences between Seoul and Washington over the perception of the situation, Yu said there are "no gaps in our views" and the two sides have "perfectly" shared information.
"There is no difference in how South Korea and the United States assess the recent developments," he said. Yu declined to specify, saying it is an intelligence matter, but diplomatic sources said there was a difference in the way of explaining what went on in Yongbyon between the two sides.
The outgoing Bush administration, which wants to see the nuclear standoff resolved before leaving office early next year, has downplayed the North's move as a bid to put pressure on Washington to delist Pyongyang.
The Bush administration, desperate to win a foreign policy success after its debacles in the Middle East, has pushed for a big bargain with North Korea to end the nuclear standoff, which would be a diplomatic victory for President George W. Bush.
But South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who took office last February as the country's first conservative leader in a decade, has vowed to be tough in dealing with North Korea and not to give any economic aid before Pyongyang gives up its nuclear weapons drive.
In an apparent bid to bridge any gap, chief nuclear envoys from Seoul and Pyongyang will gather in Beijing on Friday to coordinate their steps, according to the Foreign Ministry.
