(AP) SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea's unification minister will hold talks with six North Korean officials visiting Seoul to pay their respects to the late Kim Dae-jung, a former president beloved on both sides of the border, a government spokesman said Friday.The proposed talks with the high-level North Korean delegation raised hopes of reconciliation on the Korean peninsula, following a series of conciliatory moves by North Korea after months of tension. The two Koreas are still officially at war since their three-year conflict ended in 1953 with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.
The visitors, including spy chief Kim Yang Gon, will hold talks with Unification Minister Hyun In-taek on Saturday, the minister's spokesman Chun Hae-sung said late Friday.
Chun said consultations were under way for the proposed meeting, but he provided no further details.
Earlier Friday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that Kim Ki Nam, the North's chief delegate, had told South Korea's vice unification minister that his delegation was willing to meet with South Korean officials.
The report cited opposition lawmaker Park Jie-won, who attended the session.
At a memorial site in Seoul, the black-clad North Koreans lit incense, bowed their heads and laid a wreath before a large portrait of the late Kim. The delegation was the first Pyongyang ever sent to mourn a South Korean leader.
Kim, who died Tuesday at age 85, was respected on both sides of the border for his efforts to forge detente with the North.
He reached out to South Korea's impoverished neighbor with aid — the main thrust of his "Sunshine Policy" that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 — and held a landmark summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in 2000.
Chief delegate Kim Ki Nam delivered a letter from Kim Jong Il to the late leader's wife, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
"President Kim did a lot for the Korean people," Yonhap quoted the letter as saying, citing the late president's former aide Choi Kyung-hwan.
Pope Benedict XVI also sent a message of condolence, Yonhap said. Kim was a Catholic.
At the memorial site in the National Assembly, the delegation from Pyongyang laid a floral wreath decorated with a ribbon bearing the name of the North Korean leader and a message in memory of the late former president.
The North Koreans' closely watched two-day trip provided a valuable opportunity for dialogue between the two Koreas, whose relations have deteriorated since conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul early last year with a hardline stance toward Pyongyang.
Some 50 demonstrators chanted "topple Kim Jong Il dictatorship" near a hotel where the North's delegation was staying, burning a North Korean flag and a photo of Kim Jong Il. There was a minor scuffle between activists and police.
Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranking North Korean official to have defected to South Korea, accused the late president of propping up the impoverished regime with aid.
South Korea's unconditional aid to the North "helped Kim Jong Il develop nuclear weapons and missiles," Hwang said in a news release. Hwang, once a mentor to the North's Kim, fled to the South in 1997.
The visit is the latest indication that North Korea wants to improve relations on the peninsula after months of tensions. The communist nation recently pulled out of nuclear negotiations, conducted an atomic test and test-fired a barrage of missiles, earning international condemnation and U.N. sanctions.
Earlier this month, the North released two detained U.S. reporters and a South Korean worker, but it continued to hold four South Korean fishermen whose boat was seized last month after it strayed into northern waters.
The North also agreed to allow the resumption of some joint North-South projects suspended amid tensions with Seoul, and said it would lift restrictions on cross-border traffic in place since December and resume cargo train service across the border.
As hopes for warmer ties increased, North Korean diplomats met for a second day Thursday in the United States with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
Richardson said they told him North Korea was ready to discuss its nuclear program with Washington. The regime abandoned six-nation talks on nuclear disarmament earlier this year. The governor described the discussions as "very positive."
Chinese nuclear envoy Wu Dawei on Friday concluded a five-day visit to Pyongyang that included talks with his North Korean counterpart, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said. The report said the two discussed their countries' relations but did not specifically mention the nuclear issue.
Despite the slew of overtures, a North Korean military official warned that his country was bracing for conflict with the U.S. and South Korea — during Seoul and Washington's annual computer-simulated war games.
North Korea will deal a "merciless and immediate" strike against any U.S. or South Korean provocation, KCNA quoted the unidentified official as saying. Both the U.S. and South Korea say the exercises are purely defensive.
