Taiwan foreign minister pays respects to late South Korean president

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye recently reiterated her willingness to hold face-to-face talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un – but only if Pyongyang showed some commitment to abandoning its nuclear weapons programme.

Taiwan’s Foreign Minister David Lin (林永樂) paid his respects to the late former South Korean President Kim Young-sam during a visit Wednesday to a temporary mourning hall set up by the South Korean mission in Taipei. Despite expectations to the contrary, the two sides were able to agree fairly easily on having vice ministers participate as senior representatives for the intergovernmental talks.

“We will do our best”, said Kim Ki-Woong, the head of the South Korean Unification Ministry’s special office for inter-Korean dialogue. Although Pyongyang wanted to limit the scope of agendas the two eventually agreed to the South’s call that a “comprehensive package’ of deals be handled”.

The meeting, offered by the North, will likely be a discussion about time, venue and agenda for the high-level talks.

Inter-Koan relations have showed signs of improvement as both sides eked out the deal following heightened tension over a land mine blast blamed on the North in early August. In June 2013, the two Koreas planned to hold a ministerial-level dialogue, but it failed to be held after wrangling over the rank.

Kim, a towering figure in South Korea who fought against a succession of dictatorships from the 1960s through the ’80s, died of a severe blood infection and acute heart failure on Sunday at age 87. The inter-Korean conflict concluded with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, which means the two sides technically remain at war even as they engage in dialog. North Korea lambasts the South as an ally of its biggest enemy, the United States.

“The government plans to prepare for the upcoming high-level talks in a bid to help the inter-Korean ties genuinely improve”, Jeong Joon-hee, ministry spokesman, told a press briefing.