N.Korean communists on rare visit to South’s leader

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean officials will hold a rare
meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on Wednesday,
rounding off joint celebrations of their liberation
anniversary, where talk of Pyongyang’s nuclear program has been
avoided.

Senior communist party official Kim Ki-nam and another
party official Rim Tong-ok will be the highest-ranking North
Koreans to visit the presidential office in more than a decade,
an official from South Korea’s Unification Ministry said.

Kim, who is also a vice chairman of the North’s agency that
handles affairs with the South, is leading a delegation of 182
communists, scholars and workers to celebrations in the South
to mark the 60th anniversary of liberation from Japanese rule.

“A visit by North Koreans to the presidential Blue House
itself is rare,” a Unification Ministry official said, adding
past visits to the presidential office have been by lower
ranking North Korean officials.

During their four-day visit, Kim also held an unprecedented
meeting with South Korean parliamentarians but skirted talks on
Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and international
efforts to stop it.

The meetings come during a recess in multilateral talks
aimed at persuading North Korea to end its nuclear weapons
programs in exchange for security guarantees and economic aid.

Kim also paid respects at the national cemetery for South
Korean soldiers who perished in the Korean War.

The two Koreas are technically at war under a truce that
ended the 1950-53 war, but have forged closer ties since the
meeting of their leaders five years ago and in particular in
recent months.