SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea on Friday proposed working-level talks with South Korea to be held in a border city on Sunday as the rivals look to mend ties that have plunged during recent years amid hardline stances by both countries.

In another sign of easing tensions ahead of the proposed meeting,Pyongyang said in a statement that it would reopen a Red Cross communication line with South Korea in their truce village later Friday. The North shut the communication line in March during a tense period marked by North Korean threats of war and South Korean counter-threats.

The statement by an unidentified spokesman for the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, which handles relations with Seoul, followed the countries’ agreement Thursday to hold talks on reopening a jointly run factory complex and possibly other issues. The easing tension also comes ahead of a summit by the leaders of China and the United States in which the North is expected to be a key topic.

South Korea in April proposed government-level talks about the factory complex and on Thursday suggested holding ministerial talks in Seoul on Wednesday. But the North Korean statement said that working-level talks are needed before any higher-level meetings “in the light of the prevailing situation in which the bilateral relations have been stalemated for years and mistrust has reached the extremity.”

The envisioned talks, which Pyongyang is proposing be held in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, could help ease tensions, but the topic of ridding the North of its nuclear weapons program is not up for debate.

A key issue is finding a way to reopen the factory complex in Kaesong, which is just north of the Demilitarized Zone separating the countries.

The decade-old Kaesong complex, the product of an era of inter-Korean cooperation, shut down gradually after Pyongyang cut border communications and access, then pulled the complex’s 53,000 North Korean workers. The last South Korean managers at Kaesong left last month.

The defence ministry called in reporters for a special video presentation of the recently deployed missile being fired from a warship and a submarine.

“With this missile, we could hit any facility, equipment or individual target in the North anywhere at anytime of our choosing,” army Major General Ryu Young-Jeo told the briefing.

Defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok said the missile was accurate enough to target a particular window on a building.

It has “deadly destructive power” that could “restrain the enemy headquarters´ activities” during wartime”, Kim told reporters.

The South Korea military has been on a heightened state of alert ever since Pyongyang first threatened the nuclear test it eventually conducted on Tuesday.

It was the North´s third test, following previous detonations in 2006 and 2009, and seismic data suggested it was significantly more powerful.

The next day, South Korea said it would accelerate the development of longer-range ballistic missiles that could also cover the whole of North Korea.

In October last year, South Korea reached a deal with the United States to almost triple the range of its ballistic missile systems — with Seoul arguing it needed an upgrade to counter the North´s own missile development.

The United States has 28,500 troops in South Korea and guarantees a nuclear “umbrella” in case of any atomic attack. In return, Seoul accepts limits on its ballistic missile capabilities.

The defence ministry also said it would speed up the deployment of a “kill chain” system capable of detecting, targeting and destroying North Korean missiles.

SEOUL: South Korea launched its first space rocket carrying a science satellite on Wednesday amid heightened regional tensions, caused in part, by North Korea’s successful launch of its own rocket last month.

It was South Korea’s third attempt to launch a civilian rocket to send a satellite in orbit in the past four years and came after two previous launches were aborted at the eleventh hour last year due to technical glitches.

The launch vehicle, named Naro, lifted off from South Korea’s space center on the south coast and successfully went through stage separation before entering orbit, officials at the mission control said. Previous launches failed within minutes.

South Korea’s rocket program has angered neighbor North Korea, which says it is unjust for it to be singled out for U.N. sanctions for launching long-range rockets as part of its space program to put a satellite into orbit.

North Korea’s test in December showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea.

However, it is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States.
The test in December was considered a success, at least partially, by demonstrating an ability to put an object in space.
But the satellite, as claimed by the North, is not believed to be functioning.

South Korea is already far behind regional rivals China and Japan in the effort to build space rockets to put satellites into orbit and has relied on other countries, including Russia, to launch them.

Launch attempts in 2009 and 2010 ended in failure. The first stage booster of the South Korean rocket was built by Russia. South Korea has produced several satellites and has relied on other countries to put them in orbit.

South Korea wants to build a rocket on its own by 2018 and eventually send a probe to the moon.

SOUTH KOREA: South Korea’s new president will not tolerate North Korean provocations but will continue to push for dialogue with Pyongyang, a special envoy to President-elect Park Geun-hye said just hours after the North’s top governing body declared it would continue atomic tests and rocket launches.

Park envoy Rhee In-je told The Associated Press and selected news outlets in Davos, Switzerland, that Park is strongly urging North Korea to refrain from conducting a nuclear test that could only worsen the tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the wake of a provocative long-range rocket launch in December.

“President-elect Park makes it clear that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and further provocations against the South will not be tolerated,” Rhee said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on Thursday. “In particular, she strongly urges North Korea to refrain from further worsening the situation by conducting a third nuclear test.”

But Park, who takes office next month, wants to leave the window open to constructive dialogue with Pyongyang and will continue to provide food and medical aid as part of a “trust-building” policy for the two Koreas. “It is a gradual process based on mutual trust and respect, which can begin with keeping promises,” he said.

She also advocates returning to the six-nation disarmament negotiations, Rhee said. North Korea walked away from those talks in 2009 and has said future disarmament talks are out off the table.

On Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to condemn North Korea’s Dec. 12 rocket launch as a violation of bans against missile activity and expanded sanctions against the regime.

North Korea’s National Defense Commission responded Thursday by declaring that the regime will conduct its third nuclear test in defiance of U.N. punishment, and it made clear that its long-range rockets are designed to carry not only satellites but also warheads aimed at striking the United States.

The commission headed by the country’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, reaffirmed that the launch was a peaceful bid to send a satellite into space but also clearly indicated the country’s rocket launches have a military purpose: to attack the United States.

The commission pledged to keep launching satellites and rockets and to conduct a nuclear test as part of a “new phase” of combat with the United States, which it blames for leading the U.N. bid to punish Pyongyang. It said a nuclear test was part of “upcoming” action but did not say exactly when or where it would take place.

“We do not hide that a variety of satellites and long-range rockets which will be launched by the DPRK one after another and a nuclear test of higher level which will be carried out by it in the upcoming all-out action, a new phase of the anti-U.S. struggle that has lasted century after century, will target against the U.S., the sworn enemy of the Korean people,” the commission said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“Settling accounts with the U.S. needs to be done with force, not with words, as it regards jungle law as the rule of its survival,” the commission said.

While experts say North Korea doesn’t have the capability to hit the U.S. with its missiles, recent tests and rhetoric indicate the country is working toward that goal.

U.S. envoy on North Korea Glyn Davies urged Pyongyang not to explode an atomic device.

“Whether North Korea tests or not, it’s up to North Korea. We hope they don’t do it. We call on them not to do it,” he told reporters in Seoul after meeting with South Korean officials. “It will be a mistake and a missed opportunity if they were to do it.”

Davies was in Seoul on a trip that includes stops in China and Japan for talks on how to move forward on North Korea relations.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Thursday said North Korea’s aggressive stance is unnecessary and warned against any further testing.

“North Korea’s statement is needlessly provocative and a test would be a significant violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. Further provocation would only increase Pyongyang’s isolation, and its continued focus on its nuclear and missile program is doing nothing to help the North Korean people.”

He said the recent U.N. resolution is a “strong message of the international community’s opposition to North Korean provocations and these tightened sanctions will impede the growth of weapons of mass destruction programs in North Korea and the United States will be taking additional steps in that regard.”

Carney did not elaborate on what those steps might be.

“How dare you come here?” the man shouted, sitting between Park and a statue of activist Chun Tae-il. Chun’s 1970 labor protest suicide is seen as an expression of dissent against the rule of Park’s father, the late president and longtime dictator Park Chung-hee.

As cameras flashed, Park Geun-hye stood with an awkward smile frozen on her face. Then she left.

That August confrontation sums up a huge challenge for Park as she attempts to become the country’s first female president and keep the government in conservative hands in the Dec. 19 election.

She has been in the public eye longer than either of her rivals and is a skilled political operator, but she is also hounded by her father’s complicated legacy, which continues to divide many South Koreans.

He is revered for steering South Korea to economic and diplomatic power with a hostile North Korea at its doorstep. And he is loathed for what rights groups call a long history of torture, unlawful executions and other abuses of power.

Park Chung-hee has been dead for more than 30 years, since his intelligence chief shot him down during a 1979 drinking party. But he has proven the biggest stumbling block to his daughter’s campaign.

In July she said her father’s 1961 coup was “the best choice in an unavoidable situation.” Critics slammed the statement as a defense of her father’s overthrow of a democratically elected government.

Some also saw later comments as an unwillingness to renounce a 1975 court ruling that handed death sentences or long prison terms to 23 people opposed to her father. The charges are widely seen as rigged, and the Supreme Court in 2007 cleared the eight who were executed, ruling their confessions came after torture.

She has since apologized to victims of her father’s authoritarian rule and has visited memorials to activists. Liberals, however, have called her efforts political theater and insist that she follow through on her pledge to “heal” victims’ pain.

Her conflicted feelings about her father “make up the soft underbelly of the conservatives’ campaign” to stay in power, said Tom Coyner, a business development consultant and an author who has written about South Korean political matters. “Her opponents already smell blood.”

Without her father’s looming specter, the 60-year-old Park would seem to be in a confident position.

She served five terms in the legislature and earned the nickname “Queen of Elections” for her ability to win tight races. She only narrowly lost in presidential primaries five years ago to current conservative President Lee Myung-bak, whose single term ends in February.

Many older South Koreans have fond memories of watching Park grow to womanhood in the presidential Blue House, first as a dutiful daughter and then, after an assassin killed her mother, as her father’s stand-in first lady.

She is running against two relatively new political faces. Independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo is a popular software magnate and former university professor with charisma but little political experience. Liberal candidate Moon Jae-in is a first-term lawmaker and former close aide to late President Roh Moo-hyun.

Polls show Park ahead in the three-way race, but some surveys show her trailing if Ahn and Moon settle on a single opposition candidate — a move that many expect.

Park’s inability to strike the right balance on her father is seen as one of the few things unifying a splintered opposition.

“She needs to convince people that she is almost on the same wavelength with them on the historical wrongdoings perpetrated by her father,” said Jun Kye-wan, a political commentator and head of a Seoul-based private political institute. “It’s difficult, but it lies at the core of doubts about her.”

Park must also consider the many who revere her father. They form her conservative support base. Many are in their 50s and older and remember her father’s strong hand as South Korea pulled itself up from wartime destruction.

“Young people don’t understand the many shivering nights of blackouts, cold and hunger,” said Jin Soo-chul, a 61-year-old retired businessman. “Had they lived through those times, they would feel differently about Park Chung-hee.”

Critics say South Korea’s economic gains under Park Chung-hee are dwarfed by his harsh abuse of opponents.

After a closer-than-expected victory in 1971 elections against a popular opposition candidate — future president and Nobel Peace laureate Kim Dae-jung — Park had the constitution scrapped, declared a state of emergency and seized unchecked power. Park maintained he was fighting communist plots.

As a politician, Park Geun-hye has created an image based partly on her devotion to father and country.

She was 22 when her mother was assassinated during a failed 1974 attack on her father; the killer claimed guidance from Pyongyang.

Park abandoned studies in France and began a five-year run as first lady, which her website says gave her “precious experiences in national management and history.”

In 1979, when an aide woke Park and told her of her father’s assassination, her reply, according to her website, was, “Is the front line well?” The implication is that, despite her grief, she immediately understood that perceived instability in Seoul could spur conflict on the Koreas’ tense shared border.

Although Park, who never married, has been well known in South Korea for decades, relatively little is known about her personal life. She reportedly said during her previous presidential run that she turned to breathing exercises and tennis when stressed, that she liked seasoned Korean vegetables and Chinese philosophy and that she had wanted to be a teacher as a girl. She recently mentioned Queen Elizabeth I as her role model.

She has a complex history with Pyongyang, which loathes her anti-communist father. But Park also traveled to Pyongyang in 2002 and met privately with then-leader Kim Jong Il.

In a recent poll by the Asan Institute think tank, Park was seen as the strongest candidate on dealing with North Korea. Still, unless tensions spike with Pyongyang in coming weeks, many observers see average South Koreans’ economic difficulties as the crucial issue.

The Asan poll found that Park was judged the strongest candidate in leadership skills and experience, but she ranked last in “ability to reform” and “ability to communicate with the people.”

Park has worked to showcase her long years of service and move past controversy over Park Chung-hee.

“Her father’s history of raising the country out of poverty and harshly cracking down on the opposition is both her light and her shade. She has basked in the light as a politician, but she is now struggling with the shade,” political commentator Jun Kye-wan said.

“It is her fate that she must overcome this dilemma to become president.”

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AP writer Sam Kim contributed to this story from Seoul.