SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea’s reclusive leader met Friday with a top South Korean official for the first time in more than three years, raising hopes of an easing of the international standoff over the North’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young delivered a spoken message to Kim Jong Il from South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun calling for resolution of the nuclear issue and improved relations between the divided Koreas during 2½-hour talks in the North’s capital Pyongyang, according to pool reports.

Kim, the North Korean leader, agreed late Tuesday to the meeting proposed by the South Koreans, saying he wanted to see officials traveling with Chung who he had previously met.

A South Korean government delegation has been in Pyongyang since Tuesday for anniversary celebrations of a landmark summit when Kim met then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung there in June 2000 – the first-and-only such talks.

Chung’s delegation had been set to return Friday morning to Seoul but postponed their departure after the North agreed late Thursday to their request for a meeting with Kim.

Chung delivered a message to Kim from South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, a senior Unification Ministry official said on condition of anonymity, declining to specify its contents. Local news reports have said the message urged Kim to make a “strategic decision” to abandon his nuclear program.

Also attending Friday’s meeting in Pyongyang was Lim Dong-won – a former South Korean intelligence chief who met Kim Jong Il as a presidential envoy in April 2002, the last top South Korean official to meet the North Korean leader – and former Unification Minister Park Jae-kyu, pool reports said.

The officials spent more than five hours away from their Pyongyang guest house for the talks. When Chung was asked by pool reporters in North Korea if the meeting went well, he said “yes” with a bright expression.

The reclusive Kim rarely sees visiting officials, and the meeting raised hopes in the South of possible progress in resolving the latest nuclear crisis that erupted in late 2002 after U.S. officials accused Pyongyang of running a secret uranium enrichment program.

“It shows North Korea is making their best efforts,” South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan told reporters in Seoul.

The North has refused to return to nuclear disarmament talks for nearly a year, citing “hostile” U.S. policies, and declared it had nuclear weapons in February. It has also in recent months made moves that would allow it to create more weapons-grade plutonium, adding to a stockpile experts believe is already enough to build about six nuclear bombs.

On Thursday evening, Chung met in Pyongyang with the North’s No. 2 leader, Kim Yong Nam, who said his country could treat the United States as a friendly nation if Washington acknowledges its regime.

“If the United States recognizes North Korea’s system, North Korea too will treat them as an ally,” Kim Yong Nam told Chung, according to the Unification Ministry.

Chung relayed Seoul’s position that the North Korean nuclear issue should be “resolved peacefully and diplomatically through dialogue,” his ministry said.

He also told Kim Yong Nam the results of a recent Washington summit between President Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, where the two reaffirmed they would solve the North Korean nuclear issue through diplomacy.

Kim Yong Nam also met Thursday with members of the South’s civilian delegation to the anniversary festivities, where he repeated the North’s allegations against Washington. “The United States’ hostile policies have not changed a bit and they are pressuring us in many aspects,” he said.

American officials have repeatedly said they have no intention to invade the North, and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said Washington recognizes North Korea as a sovereign nation.

Rice said Thursday that it wasn’t enough for North Korea to return the disarmament talks – which also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea – but that Pyongyang should commit to discussing the dismantling of its nuclear program.

“The ball is in the North Koreans’ court,” Rice said in Washington before leaving on a weeklong trip to the Middle East and Europe.

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