South Korean newspapers have given a mixed reception to the agreement between the two Koreas to work together to allay international fears over the North's nuclear weapons programme.

Several papers praise North Korea's promise to resolve the issue through dialogue.

The semi-official news agency Yonhap notes that "neither the North nor the South fell short of expectations."

The South has failed to clearly obtain the North's pledge to honour international agreements

Choson Ilbo

It says the South played a particularly important role in brokering the deal.

But the country's oldest nationalist daily Choson Ilbo takes a harder stance and says the agreement does not go far enough.

The South has failed "to clearly obtain the North's pledge to honour international agreements," it says.

It ascribes the failure to "the North's stubborn attitude".

"It seems difficult for our side to avoid the criticism of only being engrossed in reaching an agreement, in that it failed to straighten this [nuclear issue] out even though the North's nuclear development is a violation of the [Joint] Declaration on Denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and the Geneva nuclear agreement," the daily says.

The South is expected to play an even more important role and expectations about its role are also rising higher than at any other time before

Yonhap

It identifies the cause of the failure as a fundamental difference in approach.

"The reason the joint communique's content on the nuclear issue fell short of initial expectations is that the North basically recognises the nuclear issue not as a North-South issue but as a US-North issue," it says.

'Legitimate' means

A commentary on Yonhap offers some sympathy for North Korea and says it is difficult for small countries to resist the temptation to develop nuclear weapons as a means of survival, given that this is likely to produce the maximum effect with the smallest expenses.

The commentary says it would be "unreasonable" for North Korea to be an exception.

The South wants the North to stick to nuclear deals

Still, it believes that that the implementation of the Geneva Convention is "a fundamental solution" to the nuclear issue.

It, too, highlights the role of the South, hoping this might raise its international profile.

"The South is expected to play an even more important role and expectations about its role are also rising higher than at any other time before."

No small result

An article in the moderate Chungang Ilbo is even more supportive of the agreement, which it praises as "no small result".

The North "seemed to have resolved the nuclear issue and honoured the June declaration," it says.

The June declaration saw the two Koreas commit themselves for the first time in history to promoting mutual understanding, developing mutual relations and achieving peaceful reunification.

The will to peacefully resolve the controversy over the North's nuclear development is contained in the agreement with the North

Hangyore

The newspaper emphasises that South Korea had made it clear to the North that it wanted it to comply fully with the joint declaration on demilitarisation of the Korean peninsula.

It is optimistic that the North will heed the advice.

"The North's agreement on principles to resolve the nuclear issue through dialogue also contains its tacit agreement [on the issue], " it says.

The centre-left daily Hangyore, usually sympathetic toward North Korea, is less convinced.

"The 'principle of resolving [the nuclear issue] through dialogue' fell short of the North's specific explanations about the controversy regarding the North's nuclear [development], which the United States raised."

However, it is confident the issue will finally be resolved through peaceful negotiations.

"We cannot emphasize strongly enough that the will to peacefully resolve the controversy over the North's nuclear development is contained in the agreement with the North."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.