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North Korea to send mourners to South, signals softening
Wed Aug 19, 2009 10:56pm EDT
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By Jonathan Thatcher
SEOUL (Reuters) - Reclusive North Korea said on Thursday it would send a high-ranking delegation to the South to mourn former President Kim Dae-jung in the latest sign of easing tensions with the outside world.
In another indication the defiant state might be softening, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said that North Korean diplomats he met in Santa Fe on Wednesday had sent "good signals."
Kim, who died on Tuesday aged 85, was awarded the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the same year the first summit between the leaders of the rival Koreas.
North Korea's KCNA news agency said leader Kim Jong-il had approved the August 21-22 visit, headed by close aide Kim Ki Nam, secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party.
The delegation for the state funeral on August 23 will be the first high-level visit to the South by North Korean officials in almost two years.
Kim Jong-il had earlier sent condolences to the former president's family, praising his efforts to reunite the two Koreas, divided since the end of World War Two.
The North has offered no direct olive branch to the government of conservative President Lee Myung-bak whose hard-nosed approach since taking office 18 months ago, by cutting off once regular aid to the North and tying it to nuclear disarmament, has put relations back in the freezer.
But the decision to send the delegation is the latest in a series of conciliatory steps which follow months of military grandstanding by North Korea, including a nuclear test in May, that have deepened the impoverished state's isolation.
They come as Philip Goldberg, the U.S. coordinator for the U.N. resolution aimed at North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, is in Singapore at the start of an Asian tour to strengthen the measures.
HOPE FOR THAW
The first sign of a more conciliatory North Korea came earlier this month when it released two jailed American journalists following a visit to Pyongyang by former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Richardson, who met representatives from the North Korean mission to the United Nations, said Pyongyang hoped the Clinton visit -- the most senior U.S. envoy to visit in almost a decade -- would lead to a thaw in relations.
"The North Koreans are sending good signals, that they're ready to talk directly to the United States," he said on CNN. "They felt that the President Clinton visit was good, that it helped thaw relations, make them easier."
"I detected for the first time ... a lessening of tension, some positive vibration," he said.
He said the North Koreans, who had requested the meeting, had indicated they wanted to have a dialogue with the United States though Washington wants Pyongyang to return to six-party talks to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Continued...
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