http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20010314/wl/korea_talks_dc_4.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea expects its first exchange of mail with
North Korea in more than 50 years on Thursday despite a fresh blast of
Cold War rhetoric from Pyongyang.
``We expect the letters to be exchanged as scheduled,´´ Seoul´s
Unification Ministry said Wednesday. ``We haven´t received
notification from the North about any change.´´
About 300 families from both sides of the heavily fortified border,
separated since the start of the 1950-53 Korea War, are to send their
first letters to each other since 1950.
The exchange, to take place at the neutral U.N. border village of
Panmunjom, is a result of an historic summit last June in which leaders
of the two Koreas vowed to end a half century of sometimes bloody confrontation.
Breaking decades of stony silence is an emotional issue for about 10
million people in the two Koreas who have family ties on each side of
the sealed border. The vast majority have not seen their relatives since the 1950-53 Korea War.
But doubts about whether the mail exchange would take place arose after
North Korea Tuesday abruptly called off cabinet-level talks with South
Korea scheduled for this week in Seoul, apparently angry about tough talk coming from Washington.
Thousand-Fold Revenge
North Korea blasted the Bush administration Wednesday for its hard-line
approach toward the communist state a day after abruptly canceling the talks.
``It (the Bush administration) is escalating its provocative and
reckless anti-DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea)
diatribe,´´ said Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers´ Party
newspaper, in an editorial carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
``If the U.S. imperialists dare turn to confrontation with the DPRK, the
army and people of the DPRK will take thousand-fold revenge on them,´´ it said.
North Korea called off the talks just hours before they were scheduled
to start, prompting speculation Pyongyang was unhappy about U.S.
President George W. Bush's tough line in his meeting in Washington last
week with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.
Bush told Kim he was skeptical about North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and
Washington was thoroughly reviewing its policy toward the North.
Pyongyang lambasted Washington's proposed National Missile Defense''
system (NMD), calling it a ``blatant challenge.´´
``The U.S. can neither be justified nor tolerated in trying to establish
the NMD for aggression under the absurd pretext of ´threat´ from the DPRK,´´ KCNA said.
Bush Surprises North
``North Korea needs time to form its position on Washington´s
harder-than-expected stance against it in the wake of the Kim-Bush
summit,´´ said Lee Chul-ki, professor of international relations at Dongguk University.
``Through the cancellation, Pyongyang seems to want to send a message to
Washington that it´s not happy with Washington´s policy changes (toward North Korea),´´ he added.
But Lee expected Pyongyang to reschedule this week's talks soon.
``Pyongyang knows improving relations with Seoul under the Kim
administration would benefit its interests.´´
There has been no word on when the cabinet-level talks might be
rescheduled, which Seoul officially said the North had canceled citing ``internal reasons.´´
The two sides have held four rounds of minister-level meetings since last year's summit.
South Korea's Culture and Tourism Minister Kim Han-gil said after his
four-day visit to Pyongyang that North and South Korea had agreed to expand cultural exchanges.
The two Koreas remain technically at war under a 1953 armed truce but
last June's summit in Pyongyang between President Kim Dae-jung and the
North's Kim Jong-il started a thaw in their Cold War stand-off. --