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Kim vows to

push for

DPRK summit

SEOUL: South Korean President Kim Dae-Jang has said, unofficial contact is underway with Stalinist North Korea and vowed to push for a full leadership summit after this month's elections, according to an interview published on Saturday.

He said the two Koreas are having a flurry of informal contacts which would lead to a boom in economic exchanges after South Korea's April 13, parliamentary poll.

"Unofficial contacts are currently underway through various channels," Kim said in an interview with Dong Ah Ilbo daily.

After the elections he said, he would "brief the people and the opposition" and pursue an inter-Korean summit with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-Il.

On his tour of Germany last month, Kim proposed launching government-to-government talks with North Korea to spur fledgling economic cooperation between the two rivals.

The two sides agreed to hold a historic inter-Korean summit in 1994 but the sudden death of then North Korean president Kim Il-Sung scuttled the landmark meeting.

North and South Korean remain technically at war as the truce which ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean conflict has never been translated into a full peace treaty.

"After the elections there will be a North Korean boom on a great scale, which would even pale the Middle East boom," Kim said in reference to the construction boom in the 1970s which greatly benefited South Korean firms.

"It will open the doors for small and mid-sized firms for investment in the North on a scale beyond expectations," Kim said.

North Korea has yet to officially respond to the South's invitation to talks.

But the official organ of the North's ruling Workers Party, Rodong Sinmun, said in an editorial that south Korea must scrap its military exercises with US forces and drop its "confrontational" policy toward Pyongyang before the two rivals can talk officially.ÑAFP