Against this background the unification minister, Hong Soon Young, warned of "a sense of crisis" among North Korea's leaders as a result of the seemingly hard-line American position.

"My guess is that Pakistan was the only available partner," said Lee Hong Koo, a former South Korean prime minister and unification minister.

"It seems that possibility is not likely, considering the time of the accident," the South Korean unification minister, Mr. Jeong, said Friday when asked at a news conference about possible sabotage.

South Korea's unification minister was telling reporters that he envisioned some kind of economic union between North and South Korea within 15 years.

"We've agreed the labor cost will be $65 a month," Jeong Se Hyun, South Korea's unification minister and a coordinator in North-South relations, told reporters.

Asked about the nuclear crisis, South Korea's unification minister, Jeong Se Hyun, who is leading the talks with the North, seemed to play down the issue.

On Monday, the South Korean unification minister, Chung Dong Young, told reporters that the suspension would probably be extended for a year more.

The church member Jae-jung Lee had been once a unification minister of the Republic of Korea.

South Korea's unification minister, Hong Soon Young, walked out of talks with North Korea last month after rejecting demands to call off the alert.

"These are not just test runs," said South Korea's unification minister, Lee Jae-joung.