Kim vows to continue 'Shunsine' policy

Kim vows to continue 'Shunsine' policy

Agencies, Seoul

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung said on Wednesday he had not given up on his "Sunshine Policy" of engaging North Korea despite feeling disappointment at setbacks in dealings with the North.

Kim, who starts a European tour on Sunday, also called for direct talks between the United States and communist North Korea, saying that they had many things to tell each other.

Kim traveled to the North Korean capital Pyongyang in June 2000, holding an historic meeting with the North's Kim Jong-il at which the two leaders vowed to end five decades of enmity between the capitalist South and communist North.

But there have been setbacks since.

"Although we are disappointed, we are not downright discouraged by it because, when we are dealing with the North Koreans, of course we will experience setbacks but also we experience progress as well," Kim told Reuters in an interview at the presidential Blue House in Seoul.

Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for promoting reconciliation with the North.

Kim Jong-il has not followed through on his pledge to visit Seoul and North Korea has disappointed the South by postponing a series of reconciliation projects, including reunions of families separated by their closed border since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Meanwhile, United Nations organizations engaged in a massive humanitarian aid effort in famine-stricken North Korea complained on Wednesday of government obstacles on their efforts to feed the Stalinist country.

As the UN's World Food Program (WFP) on Tuesday in Washington announced a US$250 million appeal for food aid to feed starving North Koreans in 2002, UN officials here protested about the pace of progress in their efforts to secure cooperation from the North Korean government.