North 'regrets' battle, seeks talks

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North 'regrets' battle, seeks talks

North Korea expressed regret Thursday over last month's naval skirmish in the Yellow Sea, and proposed a resumption of suspended bilateral ministerial talks in Seoul. The message from Pyeongyang came after weeks of escalating tension on the peninsula.

"We regret the accidental armed clash that took place in the West Sea recently," North Korea's chief negotiator Kim Ryong-sung said in a message to South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun delivered through the truce village of Panmunjeom. "The two Koreas should make joint efforts to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents."

Mr. Kim asked that "the seventh inter-Korean minister-level talks be held in Seoul, and working-level delegates meet in early August at Mount Geumgang to negotiate issues of mutual interests." The two Koreas should also discuss agreed issues such as relinking cross-border railroads and resuming separated family reunions, he said.

Seoul welcomed the North's move. "The message should be regarded as the North's clear apology for the naval clash," Vice Unification Minister Kim Hyung-ki said. After the battle, in which four South Korean sailors were killed and one is missing, President Kim Dae-jung had asked the North to apologize.

Frozen inter-Korean relations are expected to thaw. The naval clash had stopped even the few contacts that had taken place this year; minister-level talks have been suspended since November.

There may also be new hope for a North-South minister's meeting at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Brunei next week. The North's news agency said Thursday that its foreign minister would meet his Japanese counterpart on the sidelines of the Brunei meeting.

The Millennium Democratic Party spokesman, Lee Nak-yon, said "The North's message is too weak to meet the South's demand of an official apology, but the government should accept the North's 'regrets' and its proposal to meet, considering the present and future of inter-Korean relations."

The main opposition Grand National Party reserved judgement. "We demanded an apology, punishment of those responsible and a promise of no more incidents," the GNP spokesman, Nam Kyung-pil, said. "We will have to wait and see."

The United Liberal Democrats' head, Kim Jong-pil, said, "The North called the naval clash an accident, but it was an intentional provocation."

Lee Jong-seok, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Sejong Institute, said Pyeongyang's move will revitalize moribund inter-Korean relations. "There are a series of signs of North Korean economic reforms," Mr. Lee said, "and Pyeongyang is aware that improving its foreign relations is vital for its internal reforms." Improving inter-Korean relations is a natural first step for the North to take, Mr. Lee said, and Thursday's move is a clear demonstration of such a strategy.

Lim Dong-won, President Kim's senior advisor on North Korean policy and widely considered to be the architect of Mr. Kim's "sunshine policy," said Thursday that North Korea has been taking reform steps ordered last November by its leader, Kim Jong-il. Speaking at an academic forum in Seoul, Mr. Lim said the North has been preparing such reforms since Kim Jong-il visited China and Russia last year. "Now Pyeongyang is slowly putting its reform scheme into practice," Mr. Lim said. "Our government's policy is to induce the North to open up its society and to introduce a market economy," he continued. "The recent changes there give an impression that the North has begun moving in that direction."

But Yoo Ho-yeol, a Korea University professor, warned against seeing the North's economic changes as an outcome of Seoul's engagement policy. He called it a survival tactic, and said crediting the sunshine policy could be seen as too self-centered.

by Lee Young-jong

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