SKorea hopes for better ties with NKorea after US deal
October 13, 2008 SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea said Monday it hopes a US move to drop North Korea from a terror blacklist will warm Seoul’s chilly ties with the communist state, but conservative media slammed the move as “unprincipled.”
Unification ministry spokesman Kim Ho-Nyoun said South Korea is considering a shift in policy, including on the issue of providing food and steel.
Inter-Korean ties, which are handled by the ministry, have been frigid since conservative President Lee Myung-Bak took office here in February and promised to take a firmer line with the hardline North.
“We hope that (removing the North from the blacklist) will have a positive impact on improving relations between South and North Korea,” Kim told reporters.
Despite acute shortages the North has not asked the South for its customary food shipment this year.
Steel shipments " part of the international aid promised to the North in return for a nuclear shutdown " were delayed because a six-nation disarmament pact seemed in danger of disintegrating.
North Korea said Sunday it would resume disabling its plutonium-producing nuclear plants and readmit UN inspectors in response to the US concession.
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