New attempts to underpin roller-coaster relations between the two Koreas will start on Monday when they hold their first ministerial meeting since a deadly sea battle in June.
There are high hopes the talks will improve the atmosphere on the Korean peninsula that has been strained since the June 29 clash in which dozens of soldiers from both sides were killed or injured.
But the North warned before its delegation’s arrival in Seoul on Monday that military tensions remain high.
It said the rival South had committed ”a grave military provocation” on Friday by moving troops and armoured vehicles close to the demarcation line in the demilitarised zone dividing the peninsula.
”Such provocations were committed at a time when the dialogue is to be held between the North and the South and an atmosphere of reconciliation and cooperation is mounting,” said the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
”This cannot be construed otherwise than a deliberate move of the South Korean military hawkish forces to swim against the trend of the favourably developing situation,” added KCNA, warning this could ”seriously affect” attempts to improve relations.
In Seoul, senior government officials on Sunday attended the funeral of one of the five South Korean sailors killed in the clash whose body was only recovered last week.
Admiral Chang Jung-Kil, navy chief of staff, said at the funeral that Han Sang-Guk had given his life to defend the South’s territory against ”the enemy”.
But a five-member North Korean delegation led by Kim Ryong-Song, a chief cabinet councillor or minister, was still due in Seoul on Monday for three days of talks with a South Korean team led by Unification Minister Jeong Se-Hyun.
Jeong said the meeting would focus on fixing a schedule for agreements already reached, including more reunions of families separated since the 1950-1953 Korean War.
Restoring an inter-Korean railway and road will also be high on the agenda, he said. South Korea has hinted at providing the crisis-stricken North with 300 000 tons of rice.
The talks will be the first high-level dialogue since the North suspended contacts last November when the North apparently felt targeted by a South Korean security alert prompted by the US-led war on terrorism.
The mood worsened after US President George Bush in January said North Korea was part of an ”axis of evil”, with Iran and Iraq.
But despite the hostility toward Washington, this week’s talks are likely to take place in a more favourable atmosphere.
North Korea has promised to participate in the Asian Games in the South Korean city of Busan from September 29 to October 14. On Friday, the North said it would also send supporters and an art troupe to the Games.
The North boycotted the 1986 Asian Games, the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and the 2002 football World Cup co-hosted by Japan and South Korea.
The talks became possible after Pyongyang made a rare expression of ”regret” over the naval clash that claimed the lives of five South Koreans and an estimated 30 North Koreans.
It reversed its earlier stance that the South had initiated the clash in the Yellow Sea and offered to resume dialogue.
The talks will be closely watched by the United States which froze a plan to send a top envoy to Pyongyang after the sea clash.
But North Korea’s Foreign Minister Paek Nam-Sun met US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi on the sidelines of an Asian regional forum in Brunei this month.
A landmark summit between the North’s leader Kim Jong-Il and South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung in June 2000 raised hopes of achieving a permanent end to five decades of hostility. The two sides never formally ended the Korean War with a peace treaty. – Sapa-AFP