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(LEAD) South, North Korea to hold prime ministerial meeting in mid November
SEOUL, Oct. 26 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea Friday agreed to hold an inter-Korean prime ministerial meeting in mid November to discuss ways of easing tensions and boosting inter-Korean economic cooperation in a follow-up measure to a rare inter-Korean summit held in Pyongyang in early October.
The meeting of North and South Korean prime ministers has been set for Nov. 14-16 in Seoul, officials at the Unification Ministry said, one of the two high-level talks President Roh Moo-hyun and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-il agreed to hold in November. The other meeting involves defense ministers.
Working-level officials of the two Koreas made the agreement at the North's border town of Kaesong. They sought to discuss the agenda, schedules and delegations for the prime ministerial talks between Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and North Korea's Kim Yong-il.
President Roh Moo-hyun met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il for the second-ever inter-Korean summit in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, on Oct. 2-4, in which the two agreed to significantly expand cooperation and exchange between their nations.
North Korean Premier Kim Yong-il will travel to Seoul by direct flight over the West Sea as the head of a seven-member delegation from Pyongyang, said officials of the Unification Ministry.
Working-level officials of the two Koreas met in the North Korean border town of Kaesong earlier in the day to agree on the date for the prime ministerial talks. Seoul had proposed Nov. 14-16 as the date for the talks last week.
The two Koreas have yet to agree, however, on who will be on the seven-member list, Vice Unification Minister Lee Kwan-se who represented South Korea in the preparatory meeting in Kaesong said, after returning from the one-day trip. The working-level officials will meet again on Nov. 6 in Kaesong to settle outstanding issues, Lee said.
"Making up the delegation list, it'd be difficult to have each South Korean delegate correspond with each North Korean delegate," Lee said, "Issues like whether the delegation should include military personnel have yet to be decided."
The seven-member North Korean delegation will be accompanied by an entourage of up to 50 North Koreans assisting the main team, he said.
For its delegation to the talks, South Korea plans to have Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung come with the prime minister, along with vice ministers of finance, defense, industry and construction and a senior official from the National Intelligence Agency, Lee said.
"The summit produced agreements that are much more comprehensive (than those from the first 2000 summit), so talks will continue to pursue issues such as what agencies need to be set up and how they could be set up," Lee said.
The Koreas technically remain in a state of war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Seoul hopes to replace the armistice with a peace treaty in the near future as international talks to denuclearize the communist North move forward.
Pyongyang shut down its five nuclear facilities earlier this year, and has agreed to disable three key nuclear plants at Yongbyon and declare all of its nuclear programs by year's end.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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