Two Koreas move closer

AFTER nearly five decades of stalemate, North and South Korea are showing the strongest signs in years of moving towards reconciliation. In letters and news reports delivered yesterday, the secretive government of North Korea called for "dialogue and negotiation" and "a relationship of coalition and unity".

"We make clear that we are willing to have dialogue and negotiation with anyone in South Korea, including political parties and organisations," said Kim Yong Sun, a senior North Korean policy-maker, in a report by the official Korean Central News Agency. "The north and the south must promote coexistence, co-prosperity, common interests, mutual collaboration and unity between fellow countrymen."

At the same time, 70 letters carrying a similar message were delivered to the south at the only border crossing point, the village of Panmunjom. They appear to be timed in advance of the inauguration in Seoul next week of Kim Dae Jung, a former dissident, who was elected in December's presidential poll.

The outgoing president, Kim Young Sam, was the object of merciless vituperation by the north which regarded him as an American puppet. "Change of the administration and the President does not automatically open the way [for co-operation], but the key lies on changes in policies," said the North Korean letters, which maintained Pyongyang's insistence that any improvement in relations depends on the departure of American troops from the south.