Minister Level Conference to Be Held in the First Half of the Year.

Government is promoting measures to re-open minister level conference of the South- North in the first half of this year, which was halted after 6th conference in last November.

Jeong Se- hyun, Minister of Unification stated in work report of committee for Unification and Foreign Affairs in National Assembly, saying, “we are having a discussion to have 7th minister level conference of the South-North in order to examine and adjust the execution of agreement between the North and the South” and “ if military authorities conference is held, we will discuss holding 2nd conference of defense ministers”.

Minister Jeong said in regard to the North`s leader Kim Jeong-il`s visit to Seoul, “leader Kim showed interest in visiting Seoul, however, there was no concrete discussion”.

He said successively, “ we will support 200,000 tons of fertilizer such as combined fertilizer and Urea and it will leave port in April last, at first” and “66 billion won of expenditure like buying, transporting and delivering will be spent from South-North cooperative fund”.

Dong-Ki Sung esprit@donga.com