South Korea's new defence chief said Thursday there was no evidence that the sudden discharge of water from a North Korean dam which killed six southerners was a deliberate attack.

The North on September 6 released millions of tonnes of water into a cross-border river, which killed six South Koreans camping downstream.

"We have no solid information to say the discharge was for a water attack," Kim Tae-Young, appointed defence minister on September 3, said in a report to parliament.

He said the dam's floodgates were opened after it was full of water.

The report tallies with accounts by the North, which said a sudden surge in the dam's water level prompted an "emergency" release. Seoul officials had previously questioned the explanation of the incident which has strained cross-border relations.

In a related development Thursday, North Korea accepted a protest letter sent by South Korea's parliament speaker Kim Hyong-O to his northern counterpart, Choe Thae-Bok, calling for a "sincere" apology from its neighbour and a full explanation.

He also suggested that Pyongyang should allow South Korean lawmakers to visit the site for an investigation. There was no immediate response from the communist country.

After months of bellicose moves, the North in August began making conciliatory gestures towards the United States and South Korea.

It freed two US journalists after a visit by ex-president Bill Clinton and called for direct talks with Washington on the nuclear standoff.

The North also released five South Korean detainees, eased curbs on the operation of a joint industrial estate in the North, sent envoys for talks with President Lee Myung-Bak and proposed a new round of family reunions.

However, Pyongyang announced that its experimental enriched uranium programme — a second way to make nuclear weapons — was almost complete.

The South's Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek has expressed scepticism about the North's recent peace overtures, saying the nuclear-armed state had not changed its fundamental attitude.

Some analysts believe the North just wants to boost revenues from the South to ease the impact of tougher United Nations sanctions imposed in June.

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US to see if Japan has 'revised' thinking on NKorea

A top US envoy is in Tokyo this week in part to determine if Japan's new government has "revised" the country's approach to North Korea's nuclear disarmament, the State Department said Thursday.

Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters that Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, has arrived in Japan for a range of talks with the new center-left government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

Japan's new government has said it wants a less subservient relationship with Washington on foreign policy.

The State Department has said that its partners in the six-party disarmament negotiations agreed that the United States should hold direct talks with North Korea in a bid to bring Pyongyang back to the talks they abandoned in April.

But Washington consulted its negotiating partners — South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan — before the new Japanese government was formed.

"There is a new Japanese government in place. We've had extensive conversations with the Japanese government. Obviously, there's just been a changeover," Crowley told the daily news briefing.

"We're are going to compare notes with where we are in the process. We will, obviously, seek… any revised thinking that Japan might have on this topic," he said.

"I think that we do have a broad consensus on a strategy with respect to North Korea. I think we would welcome, you know, any thinking that Japan has," he added.

"We would fully expect that Japan will continue to play an integral and constructive role in the six-party process," he said.

"But let's have the discussions first, and then… we can figure out whether any adaptations in our current thinking are necessary."

North Korea bolted from the disarmament talks after the United Nations censured Pyongyang for a long-range rocket missile launch in April.

It then staged an underground nuclear weapons test in May, prompting a tightening of UN sanctions.

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