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SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- The front-runner to be South Korea's new president said on Friday the country should not go it alone with aid to the North, but instead tie it to international efforts to make the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons.

South Korea has given North Korea billions of dollars in aid as part of a policy to engage its impoverished neighbor, feed its people and develop its industry -- with little in return.

"I do not think it would be effective for the goals of North-South relations to give unilateral and unconditional assistance," Lee Myung-bak, the former mayor of Seoul and construction executive, said in an interview with Reuters.

"Dialogue and conditions are necessary," said Lee, a conservative who is the clear leader at present in polls to win the December presidential election.

North and South Korea agreed on Thursday to restart high-level talks, paving the way for the South's food aid and other bilateral assistance to resume after this week's breakthrough international energy-for-disarmament deal with Pyongyang.

South Korea suspended its food aid to the North after Pyongyang's missile and nuclear tests last year but has said it could resume shipments of rice and fertilizer if there was progress in the separate nuclear talks.

"I believe the bilateral talks must be conducted within the larger framework of the six-party talks to remove nuclear capabilities," said Lee.

Lee, a member of the Grand National Party, has been a critic of Seoul's engagement policy, saying it failed to change tack even when national security was under threat. North Korea has slammed the party as "traitors to the nation".

President Roh Moo-hyun's liberal government scrupulously avoids criticizing North Korea, with which Seoul is still technically at war because the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.

"The six-party process should not only eliminate the North's nuclear arms program, but should also let the North know that the only way for it to survive is to open up," Lee said.

The nuclear agreement struck by the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia requires the secretive state to shutter its sole reactor within 60 days in exchange for 50,000 tons of fuel oil or equivalent aid.

Lee said the South must help its brothers on the other side of one of the world's most heavily armed borders.

"The North Korean people are our compatriots. The focus must be on them and not the North Korean regime," Lee said.