Former S. Korean President KIm Dae-jung likely to visit Pyongyang on Jun. 27

Koreas near agreement on former president's visit to N.

South and North Korea neared an agreement on Monday to allow former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung to make a four-day visit to its capital from June 27, Kim's representatives to inter-Korean talks on his planned visit said.

The agreement, however, was yet to be finalized as the sides failed to narrow their differences on other details of the planned trip, such as the means of travel and how many people would accompany the former president, Jeong Se-hyun, the country's chief delegate to the inter-Korean talks, said.

"(The sides) agreed that former President Kim Dae-jung would visit (the North) from the 27th of next month using a land route," Jeong told reporters shortly after returning from the North's border town of Kaesong, where the one-day talks on Kim's North Korea visit took place.

He, however, said the dates may be subject to changes depending on how the former president would travel.

"During the first meeting (with North Korean officials), the sides agreed the visit would take place in the latter half of June, and at this meeting we agreed that it would be taken from June 27 through June 30," Jeong said.

"That (the dates) can be changed depending on the means of Kim's travel."

Monday's meeting was the second of its kind, following earlier talks at the North's scenic resort in Mount Geumgang on May 16-17, during which the sides agreed the former president's visit would last four days.

Kim held the historic inter-Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang in 2000. He was the first South Korean head of state ever to hold a meeting with the North's reclusive leader.

The former president has repeatedly expressed his wish to visit the North using a recently reconnected cross-border railway, but the North has been refusing to open the railroad, citing the lack of an agreement between the countries' militaries to guarantee the safety of people using it.

"We have neared an agreement that (the former president's) means of travel would be by land, but we still have to negotiate whether he will use the railway," Jeong said.

The North proposed earlier that Kim fly to Pyongyang using a direct air route over the western sea border.

The Koreas were set to test the Seoul-Pyongyang railroad, which was severed during the three-year Korean War in 1951, along with a new eastern line connecting the countries' eastern regions, on May 25, but the North unilaterally called off the tests one day before their scheduled launch.

Another sticking point has been the number of officials the North would permit Kim to bring, according to Jeong.

"We proposed sending a 90-member delegation, but the sides said they would continue to discuss the issue," Jeong said.

The former president's scheduled meeting with Kim Jong-il is expected to help speed up inter-Korean rapprochement, which got underway following their landmark 2000 meeting, and help bring the communist state back to international negotiations over its nuclear program.

The countries have held five rounds of negotiations with the United States, Japan, China and Russia since late 2002 to peacefully resolve the nuclear dispute, but the North has boycotted the talks since a November round, citing U.S. hostility.

Pyongyang is threatening to keep doing so until Washington lifts financial sanctions it imposed late last year on a Macau bank suspected of circulating counterfeit U.S. dollars printed in the North.

Washington insists the sanctions have nothing to do with the six-party talks. Its chief delegate to the nuclear negotiations said last week that his country sees no need to "sweeten" its offer for North Korea to return.

The four-member delegation headed by Jeong is to return to Kaesong next week to conclude the talks on the former president's visit, but the dates for the next meeting have yet to be set, Jeong said.

The Koreas have been divided along one of the world's most heavily-fortified borders over 50 years, with nearly 1.8 million troops from both sides still confronting each other in a state of war as the fratricidal Korean War ended only with a cease-fire.

Seoul, May 29( Yonhap News)