North and South Korea mark six years since summit

North and South Korea will hold pro-unification events this week as they celebrate the sixth anniversary of a historic inter-Korean summit amid a stalemate over the North's nuclear weapons ambitions.

This week's celebrations in Gwangju, 330km southwest of Seoul, mark the anniversary of the June 2000 summit between then-South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the first such meeting since the 1950-1953 Korean War.

The summit in Pyongyang touched off several cross-border projects such as a pilot inter-Korean industrial complex in the North's border city of Kaesong, but tensions persist over the North's nuclear weapons program, hampering full-fledged economic cooperation.

The former South Korean president, who plans to travel to Pyongyang later this month for talks with the North's Kim, will attend events this week in South Korea along with a separate meeting of 15 Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for the summit, a breakthrough that significantly warmed inter-Korean relations. Kim Jong-il promised to make a return trip to South Korea but hasn't done so yet.

A delegation of 148 North Koreans -- which includes a 20-member North Korean government delegation led by Kim Young-dae, chairman of the North's National Reconciliation Council -- is scheduled to arrive today in Gwangju via a direct air route to join the celebrations that run through Saturday.

The North Korean delegation plans to visit a national cemetery in Gwangju where dead are interred from a pro-democracy uprising more than two decades ago when South Korea was under military rule. Last year, North Koreans paid a similar visit to the main national cemetery in Seoul.

The North Korean government delegation is scheduled to meet tomorrow with South Korean counterparts, led by Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok.

Lee and other top South Korean officials have pressed in vain for North Korea to return to international talks on its nuclear program and honor a September agreement to abandon its nuclear program for aid and security guarantees.

The two Koreas also plan to hold arts and sports events, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry.