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Rival Koreas meet ahead of state funeral
Sun Aug 23, 2009 2:11am EDT
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By Kim Yeon-hee
SEOUL (Reuters) - The funeral on Sunday of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, whose efforts to reconcile the divided peninsula won him the Nobel Peace Prize, was marked by the rival Koreas' first top level talks in nearly two years.
Kim, who died on Tuesday aged 85, was a driving force in South Korea's shift to democracy and initiated the "Sunshine Policy" to try to coax the North out of its shell, leading in 2000 to the first ever summit of the two Korean leaders.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il sent a delegation to the South to join the mourning for the former president and, with them, a message to South Korea's current President Lee Myung-bak whose 18 months in office have seen a sharp deterioration in relations between the two.
The delegation, headed by a top aide to Kim Jong-il, met Lee in the latest sign the impoverished North is softening its tone after a nuclear test in May and missile launches were met with tightened U.N. sanctions and further international isolation.
The South's presidential Blue House said the meeting lasted about 30 minutes but would not disclose the content of the message to Lee, routinely derided in communist North Korea's media as a traitor and a pawn of the United States.
The reclusive North, furious at Lee's policy of ending aid until Pyongyang starts to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, has all but cut ties with its far wealthier neighbor.
"President Lee said, if South and North Korea solve problems through dialogue and in a sincere manner, there is nothing we cannot resolve," presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said.
"The North delegation expressed its gratitude for allowing the meeting and suggests both sides can cooperate and resolve (problems)," he said.
North Korea's KCNA news agency announced the return of the delegation without comment. It had arrived in Seoul on Friday and was the North's first to the South in nearly two years.
BIGGEST FUNERAL
They flew home just before the state funeral.
Yonhap news agency said about 20,000 mourners, the largest number the country has seen for a funeral, gathered in the grounds of the National Assembly to mark the death of the man who was a towering figure in the fight to bring democracy to what is now Asia's fourth largest economy.
Kim Dae-jung, popularly referred to by his initials "DJ," spent much of his political life behind bars or under house arrest. He was once sentenced to death and the target of a number of assassination attempts.
Growing up in poverty on a small island called Hawi to an unwed mother, he took a job after high school to support his family.
As the military rule in South Korea tightened, Kim emerged as a young leader of dissidents in parliament. He challenged Major-General Park Chung-hee for the presidency in 1971, and won over 46 percent of the vote in an election widely criticized as rigged in favor of Park. Continued...
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