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Koreas report progress in preparations for June summit |
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May 4, 2000 PANMUNJOM, Korea, MAY 3 (AP) - Negotiators from North Korea and South Korea moved one step closer to a formal agreement on an agenda for a historic summit between their leaders, officials said after a third round of talks Wednesday.
"The two sides have offered drafts for an agreement for the inter-Korean summit. We've agreed on many parts of them," said Yang Young-shik, South Korea's chief negotiator.
The two sides will meet again Monday for a fourth round of talks in the northern sector of the border village of Panmunjom.
Korean Central News Agency, the North's overseas news outlet, released a similar report.
Both sides "reached an agreement on a number of issues related to working procedures and agreed to have contacts of working officials in different fields at an early date," the report said.
The two sides, however, did not reach a full agreement on protocol, security, communications and other working procedures Wednesday although South Korean officials have indicated last week that they were very close to signing one.
An agreement on the agenda is considered even more complex.
Asked by reporters to comment on the agenda, North Korea's lead envoy, Kim Ryong Sung, said: "We've agreed to further discuss the issues."
The talks lasted three hours and 10 minutes, more than twice as long as the previous rounds of negotiations, which were held on April 22 and April 27.
Officials met in "Freedom House," a building in the southern sector of Panmunjom, which lies inside the 4-kilometer (2.5 mile)-wide Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.
The summit between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in the North's capital of Pyongyang on June 12-14 would be the biggest diplomatic breakthrough in a half century of confrontation.
Seoul officials said North Korea wants to arrange at least two rounds of talks between the leaders during the summit. The South Koreans hope Kim Jong Il will visit Seoul later this year.
In earlier talks, South Korea proposed an agenda calling for economic cooperation, peace measures, the reunion of separated family members and the establishment of a permanent government channel of dialogue.
North Korea suggested a broadly worded proposal requiring the two sides to pursue national reunification.
If South Korea agrees to the North Korean agenda proposal, Pyongyang could more easily raise at the summit such sensitive issues as the U.S. military presence in South Korea and Seoul's anti-communist laws.
Desperate for economic aid, impoverished North Korea has engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity in recent months. It opened ties with Italy in January and is in talks or contact with the United States, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Britain and Germany.
U.S. and North Korean officials will meet May 24 in Rome to discuss improving ties. The meeting will be a continuation of talks in New York that were adjourned on March 15.
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