The offer comes just days after Pyongyang said it would return to the bargaining table and re-open six-nation talks later this month on ending its controversial program.

South Korea would transmit its surplus electric power to the North through cross-border power lines which have yet to be built, South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young said at a press conference.

"In order to resolve the nuclear issue, we are willing to transmit power to North Korea if the North agrees on the dismantlement," Chung said.

"I hope that this offer will provide a crucial momentum for the resolution of North Korea's nuclear issue and for the settlement of peace on the Korean peninsula," he said.

Chung said that after three years of construction, South Korea would be able to route some 2,000 megawatts of electricity to the North, which has repeatedly asked for energy and security guarantees to abandon its weapons drive.

"We will carry out this proposal on our own but other countries are requested to respond (to this proposal) by making their own gestures," he said.

Pyongyang was informed of the proposal containing massive economic aid when Chung met North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il on June 10, and Chung said Kim had pledged to "consider the proposal very seriously."

Under a 1994 US-North Korea accord, an international consortium led by South Korea and the United States had been building nuclear power reactors in North Korea's northeastern county of Kumho.

But the project came to a halt after Pyongyang allegedly admitted to the United States in October 2002 that it was running a uranium enrichment programme in violation of the accord.

The reactor project called for South Korea to underwrite some 3.5 billion dollars, 70 percent of the total construction cost, with the remaining 1.5 billion dollars to be shared by the United States, Japan and the European Union.

South Korea has already spent 1.1 billion dollars on the light-water reactor project, and Seoul could use the remaining 2.4 billion dollars to build power transmission lines and overhaul the North's tattered electric facilities.

Chung said he had outlined the offer to US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a visit to Washington last month.

The initiatives from South Korea came as diplomatic efforts intensified to lay the the groundwork for the six-nation talks in Beijing later this month. The talks also include Japan and Russia.

Chinese presidential envoy Tang Jiaxuan arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday while Rice arrived in Seoul.

Chief negotiators from South Korea, the United States and Japan will also meet here on Thursday.

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