国际英语新闻：DPRK's conciliatory moves ease tensions on Korean Peninsula

The DPRK is sending good signals that it's ready to talk directly to the United States, Richardson said on the cnn.

    "They felt that the President Clinton visit was good, that it helped thaw relations, make them easier," he said.

    A visit to Pyongyang by Hyun Jung-eun, the chairwoman of the South Korean Hyundai Group, on Aug. 10 helped free a South Korean worker detained by the DPRK for nearly five months.

    The DPRK has also agreed to lift restrictions on borders with South Korea and to resume border tourism and the reunion of families separated by the Korean War, ending a year long cut-off of inter-Korean relations.

The delegation from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) led by Kim Ki-nam (R2), a Workers' Party Central Committee secretary most frequently included in DPRK's leader Kim Jong-il's entourage in public activities, pay respects to South Korean late president Kim Dae-jung in Seoul, capital of South Korea, Aug. 21, 2009. The six-member delegation arrived here on Friday and headed straight to a memorial altar set up for ex-president Kim at the National Assembly

The thaw continued when DPRK top leader Kim Jong Il sent a high-level condolence delegation to Seoul to mourn former South Korean President Kim Dae Jun, who died Aug. 18.

    Kim Yang Gon, a member of the delegation and head of inter-Korean affairs of the DPRK, held talks Saturday with his South Korean counterpart Hyun In-taek for the first time in nearly two years.

    Relations between the two sides on the Korean Peninsula had soured since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took power about18 months ago and cut off a steady flow of aid to the DPRK since a 2000 summit.

South Korea's unification minister Hyun In-taek (R) met with Kim Yang-gon, head of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s Workers' Party unification front department, from Pyongyang on Saturday in the first high-level cross-border contact in nearly two years

"After meeting with several people (in the South) I felt the imperative need for North-South relations to improve," Kim told Hyun during a brief photo session, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported.

    "The message which Pyongyang is sending to Seoul is meaningful," said the Choson Sinbo newspaper, run by ethnic Koreans in Japan.

    "It showed the will of the DPRK to actively push forward the cooperation between the two sides under the spirits conveyed in the two joint declarations signed by the two top leaders in 2000 and 2007, and to improve inter-Korean relations and realize national reunion," the newspaper said.

    The newspaper said it was possible to improve inter-Korean relations "as long as the two sides could recognize mutually the idea and system of the other side and seek common interests under the same nationality."

    Meanwhile, Washington and Seoul were still widely divided with Pyongyang on a number of knotty problems.

    The United States reiterated that U.S.-DPRK talks proposed by the DPRK must be conducted within the six-party talks, which also included China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

    Lee said he wanted a "candid dialogue" with the north on the dismantling of its nuclear programs, which the DPRK has said it would never abandon.

    It was reported Saturday that Lee would meet Sunday with the DPRK condolence delegation.

    The meeting was expected to last around 15 minutes, during which the DPRK side would deliver a message from Kim Jong Il to Lee, reports said.

    On the agenda were expected to be issues such as the DPRK's detention of four South Korean fishermen since July 30 and the resumption of the inter-Korean dialogue.