WASHINGTON/SEOUL -- South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha urged North Korea on Monday to respond to her government's call for cross-border talks on easing tensions.

The communist regime has posed a growing threat by aggressively testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

"The political and diplomatic efforts toward the denuclearization of North Korea and improvements in South-North relations can and must be pursued in a mutually reinforcing manner," Kang told a forum in Washington, where she is on her first solo trip as Seoul's top diplomat.

"In this regard, we once again urge the North to respond to our concrete proposals to revive South-North contacts beginning with two very small proposals made on July 17th and start laying the building blocks for inter-Korean reconciliation and lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula," she said.

President Moon Jae-in's liberal administration took office in May under a pledge to restore strained ties with the North. Two months later, it proposed the two Koreas meet to ease military tensions and resume reunions of families separated in the 1950-53 Korean War.

Pyongyang has yet to respond.

There is still room for diplomacy, Kang said, but "time is running out."
 

"In tackling the North Korea issue the vital importance of close coordination between the ROK and US cannot be overemphasized," she said, using the acronym of South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

Kang accompanied Moon to the UN General Assembly in New York last week.

In Washington, she plans to meet with US government officials, lawmakers and academics to coordinate their response to the North Korean threat, call for bipartisan cooperation to strengthen the bilateral alliance and prepare for US President Donald Trump's visit to South Korea in November.

Kang said that the North Korea issue is the "most difficult challenge" that South Korea and the US are currently facing but emphasized that the challenge has made their alliance "even stronger."

"In fact, the alliance is as robust as ever, and the ties between our two countries have never been so rich and diverse, so wide and so deep," she said.

With the strengthening ties, Kang noted that South Korea's contribution to the alliance has grown, and it has also picked up a "significant" amount of cost from the US troops stationed in Korea in an apparent remark aimed at rebuffing some claims in Washington that Seoul is not paying enough for its own defense.

"Korea's contribution to the alliance has continued to grow.

Korea now is spending 2.4 percent of GDP on defense, bearing a significant cost of the stationing of US Forces in Korea and providing the lion's share for the relocation of Camp Humphreys, which is the largest overseas US military base," she said.

Kang also promoted the mutual benefits from the free trade agreement that the allies put into force in 2012, saying that the deal has helped the US secure a "strong foothold" in the Northeast Asian market.

Currently, South Korea and the US are in talks on possible adjustments to the deal. Washington has blamed the deal, also known as the KORUS FTA, for its growing trade deficit with Seoul.

"The KORUS FTA, America's first FTA in the region, has provided American companies with greater access to the Korean market, while inviting Korean investments throughout many states in the US,"

Kang said. "Overall, the KORUS FTA has been a win-win deal and a driving force for greater growth and prosperity in both countries." (Yonhap)