North Korea seeking better relations to Seoul (Roundup)

Aug 23, 2009, 10:27 GMT

Seoul - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il broke months of silence on Sunday with a message to South Korean President Lee Myung Bak that was delivered by a high-ranking delegation from Pyongyang, a presidential spokesman said.

The verbal message addressed progress in cooperation between the two countries, but further details were not given.

It was the first time since Lee took office in February 2008 that the conservative South Korean president had met with officials of communist North Korea.

The two neighbours took advantage of the state funeral for former South Korean president and Nobel peace laureate Kim Dae Jung, who had actively sought to promote good relations between the North and South.

A spokesman for Lee said that after receiving the message from Kim Jong Il, the president repeated his demand for a serious dialogue between the two countries.

'In response, President Lee explained our government's consistent and firm North Korea Policy and asked the North Korean delegates to relay his message to Chairman Kim,' the spokesman said.

There were no problems that could not be resolved if South and North Korea conducted an honest dialogue, Lee said, according to his spokesman.

Lee has made improved relations with the North conditional on Pyongyang dropping its nuclear weapons programme.

The meeting took place just hours before Kim Dae Jung's funeral. On Friday, the six-member delegation from Pyongyang paid the North's final respects to Kim, who died on Tuesday aged 83.

The first high-level talks between the two sides in two years began on Saturday when South Korea's Minister of Unification Hyun In Taek met Kim Yang Gon, the head of the unification front department of North Korea's ruling Korean Workers' Party.

The North broke off the dialogue at the beginning of 2008 in response to the hardline policies towards it adopted by Lee and had resisted attempts by the South to get the talks restarted.

   After rising tensions in recent months caused in part by North Korea's test-firing of a long-range missile and its second nuclear test, there have been increasing signs of North Korea's readiness to improve relations with the South.

Delegations from both countries met several times between April and early July in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, where the North and South Korea jointly operate an industrial park.

On Friday, the North eased restrictions on the movement of people and goods across travelling across the heavily guarded frontier to and from the Kaesong factory zone.

Pyongyang has also announced its intention to allow reunions of divided families and make it easier for tourists from the South to visit the North.

Tens of thousands of South Koreans and international guests paid their final respects to the late president the state funeral on Sunday.

President Lee, who attended alongside Prime Minister Han Seung Soo, praised Kim as a 'great leader of modern history,' whose sacrifices and courage had brought democracy, human rights, and freedom to blossom as progressed the reconciliation of the Korean people.