South Korean envoy in North, vows to curb tensions
South Korean envoy in North, vows to curb tensions
Agencies, Seoul
A South Korean special envoy began three days of talks with North Korea on Wednesday to try to persuade the North's communist rulers to revive stalled diplomacy and shore up peace on the divided Korean peninsula.
The North's official KCNA news agency, monitored in Seoul, said South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's special envoy Lim Dong-won was met by a senior North Korean official from the country's peace committee. It gave no other details.
Lim's visit marks the first public contact between the two sides since November.
"I am going to Pyongyang to prevent the build-up of tensions on the Korean peninsula and open the channels of stalemated North-South relations," Lim said before he left.
"I will convey fully President Kim's thoughts on peace and national reconciliation and listen to the views of the highest authorities in North Korea," he told reporters in Seoul.
Lim, who is carrying a personal message from Kim Dae-jung to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, declined to make specific comments on his agenda but said he would relay to Pyongyang "matters of concern" to the United States and Japan.
Indonesia's President Megawati Soekarnoputri said after meeting Kim Jong-il last week that he had reacted "positively" to a message she had passed on from President Kim urging new talks.
But South Korean officials admit that all contacts with the unpredictable North Korean regime are a high-risk gamble.
"I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic. I am going to the North with a very difficult task, but I will do my best," Lim said.
Russia's Itar-Tass news agency, one of the few foreign media organizations with a correspondent in Pyongyang, reported Lim was expected to meet a senior Workers Party official on Wednesday.
"However, foreign observers consider it doubtful he will succeed in meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-il," it said.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency, however, said Lim was expected to meet Kim Jong-il as early as Thursday to convey President Kim Dae-jung's letter.
Yonhap said Lim had urged North Korea to resume talks with the United States and allow inspection of its nuclear site and discuss questions about weapons of mass destruction.
Seoul's Unification Ministry said Lim had met North Korean officials at 0700 GMT (2 p.m. Jakarta time) for "comprehensive" talks, but said it had no details on his agenda.
In Seoul, presidential spokeswoman Park Son-sook said Lim would "start with what is possible and calmly solve issues one by one", including goodwill projects agreed in June 2000.
The stalled projects include resuming reunions of families divided since the 1950-53 Korean War, restoring severed road and rail links and reviving a failing tourism scheme and a project to build a South Korean industrial park in the North.
Kim Dae-jung, 77 and in the final year of his presidency, is eager to revive his "Sunshine policy" of Korean rapprochement which ground to a halt last year after reaching historic heights with a June 2000 summit between the two Kims.
North-South ties have been frosty since last year, cooling off in tandem with the deterioration in North Korean relations with the United States under President George W. Bush.
Bush has alarmed North Korea with tough talk on Pyongyang's weapons of mass destruction and human rights record. Ties grew even icier this year after Bush labeled North Korea part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and Iraq.
Lim recently warned of a crisis next year if North Korea and the United States fail to resolve disputes over ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.
North Korea's self-imposed moratorium on testing long-range missiles expires in 2003. Next year is also seen as the latest North Korea can wait before allowing UN nuclear inspectors in to verify it has no stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium.
A failure to start inspections would undermine the 1994 Agreed Framework under which North Korea pledged to freeze a suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two safer light-water reactors built by the West.