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S Korea ponders impact of talks with Pyongyang

It is too early to say if North Korea has changed its military attitude toward the South despite a quick agreement this week to continue talks between generals, Seoul's top policy-maker on the communist North said yesterday.

Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said the North did not forget at an unprecedented meeting between a North Korean general and a commodore from the South to make grandiose, unrealistic demands before being ready to tackle more practical questions.

Wednesday's talks at the North Korean resort of Mount Kumgang were the highest level between the uniformed military since the 1950-to-1953 Korean War. They opened a rare new channel of communication by agreeing to continue discussions next Thursday at a mountain resort in the South.

North Korea had long refused to treat South Korea as a security negotiating partner, insisting that the South was merely a puppet and the US was a colonial ruler.

"We'll have to see whether the North is taking the substantive, result-oriented and skills-based approach it has been speaking about lately," Jeong told reporters.

North Korea has reasons to ease military tension so lucrative inter-Korean commercial projects can move forward, Jeong said.

"North Korea needs an easing of tension at least in areas affected by commercial exchange projects," he said.

The two Koreas are working to set up an industrial base in the North Korean town of Kaesong just north of the border and near the west coast for South Korean companies to operate using the North's cheap labor.

On the east coast, a project aimed at drawing more cross-border tourists to the Mount Kumgang resort is planned.

Pyongyang's state media reported yesterday on some of the two sides' proposals made at the talks -- the North's demand for the end of "propaganda" directed across the border and the South's proposals for measures to prevent a recurrence of deadly naval clashes.
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