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North Korean delegates in Seoul for talks
A high-level delegation from North Korea arrived for talks with South Korea amid hopes for progress in bilateral ties and the stalemate over the North's nuclear weapons ambitions. Four days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il said six-party talks on the nuclear standoff could resume as early as next month, a North Korean plane carrying a five-member team led by Kwon Ho-Ung, a senior cabinet councillor, landed at Incheon Airport, west of Seoul. Kwon, the most senior North Korean delegate to visit South Korea in more than a year, is to hold talks with Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young, who heads the South Korean team. "Please watch it with expectation," a smiling Kwon said when asked about prospects for the talks. The four-day ministerial meeting will focus on getting North Korea back to the nuclear talks and boosting inter-Korean exchanges, said the unification ministry in Seoul. In a rare meeting with Chung in Pyongyang Friday, North Korean leader Kim said his country would return to the six-way talks as early as July if Washington "recognizes and respects" his country. Since last June North Korea has boycotted the dialogue that also includes the United States, South Korea, Russia, Japan and China. On February 10 it declared that it possesses nuclear weapons. "Both South and North Korea have higher expectations for the talks than ever," said Jun Byung-Hun, spokesman for South Korea's ruling Uri Party. During the talks, the two are expected to try to set schedules for what Chung and Kim agreed in Pyongyang on June 17, officials said. Kim and Chung agreed to arrange more reunions of separated families in August and resume general-level military talks. They also agreed to push for inter-Korean fisheries talks and regular direct air routes. But Seoul officials were also hoping to receive firmer signals that North Korea will return to the disarmament talks, which aim to persuade the country to drop its nuclear arms programme in exchange for econonic benefits and security guarantees. The annual US-EU summit on Monday issued a joint statement urging North Korea to end its nuclear weapons drive and Japan and South Korea called for a swift resumption of stalled talks. Washington has responded to Kim's proposal to return to talks in July by asking for a concrete date. "Until we have a date, unless we have a date, we don't have talks," said US assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill, the US top negotiator on the issue, on Monday. Experts cautioned the North could side-step the nuclear issue at the cabinet-level talks. In the past it has said the nuclear issue was not a matter for inter-Korean dialogue which should focus on economic exchanges. Also on the agenda was a request for Japan to repatriate to North Korea an 18th-century stone monument which it seized in 1905. The talks will also likely address North Korea's request last week for an additional 150,000 tonnes of fertilizer aid from the South. Seoul donated 200,000 tonnes of fertilizer last month. The two sides will also discuss ways to encourage rapprochement projects including the development of a joint industrial site in the North and the relinking of cross-border railways. The two Koreas have remained technically at war since the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended in an armistice, not a permanent peace treaty. Icy relations have been slowly thawing since their leaders held an unprecedented summit in 2000.
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