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.