SEOUL, (Reuters) – North Korean envoys in Seoul to mourn the death of a former president today held their first talks with the current leader since he took office about 18 months ago, marking a new conciliatory tone from Pyongyang.
North Korea has all but cut off ties with President Lee Myung-bak, calling him a “traitor to the state” in anger at his government’s policies of ending unconditional aid and linking handouts to Pyongyang’s nuclear disarmament.
The meeting lasted about 30 minutes, officials said. It is the latest sign that the impoverished North is re-emerging from its shell after a nuclear test in May and missile launches that were met with tightened UN sanctions and further isolation.
The delegation of senior North Korean officials, sent on Friday by leader Kim Jong-il, visited the South’s presidential Blue House to meet Lee. There was no immediate word from the South on the content of the meeting.
Kim Ki-nam, who headed the North Korean delegation, told reporters the meeting “went well”, the South’s Yonhap news agency said. It was the North’s first dispatch of envoys to the South in nearly two years.
The envoys were expected to leave just before the state funeral for former President Kim Dae-jung, South Korean officials said.
Kim, awarded the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the first summit between the two Koreas that led to a dramatic warming of ties between the rival states, died on Tuesday at the age of 85.
If the North repairs ties with the South, which once supplied it with aid equal to about 5 percent of its estimated $17 billion a year GDP, the impoverished state could then receive a much needed boost to its coffers, analysts said.
North Korea’s broken economy has been hit hard by the UN sanctions aimed at cutting off a vital source of foreign currency it derives from missile and arms sales.
Few believe it is ready to give up nuclear weapons — the one thing that gives it leverage and the threat of which has won it repeated concessions in the past.
