Libyan women protesters carry the effigy of Moammar Gadhafi as they shout slogans during a demonstration in Benghazi, Libya, Thursday, March 31, 2011 (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

A key Libyan official involved in negotiations on the future of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime said Friday that Tripoli was attempting to hold talks with the U.S., Britain and France to find a mutual end to the crisis.

Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi, a former Libyan prime minister, said Gadhafi’s government was reaching out to those leading the international military campaign in an attempt to halt air strikes against regime targets which began March 19. The claim follows confirmation that a Libyan government aide has held talks in Britain with U.K. officials in recent days.

“We are trying to talk to the British, the French and the Americans to stop the killing of people. We are trying to find a mutual solution,” al-Obeidi told Britain’s Channel 4 News, speaking in Tripoli.

Meanwhile, rebel leaders pressed for a cease-fire on the condition that troops loyal to Gadhafi be pulled from contested cities.

Despite losing ground in the last few days, largely due to a lack of U.N. air support because of weather, outside military observers claim the rebel forces are beginning to become more organized. The rebels were also moving Friday to generate sales of oil from captured production facilities.

Al-Obeidi was involved last month in Gadhafi-sanctioned negotiations with the African Union.

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman, Steve Field, said the U.K. has been in contact with a number of Libyan officials over recent weeks, though he declined to give specific details.

“We are sending them all one very clear message, which is that Gadhafi must go,” he told reporters.

Mohammed Ismail, a senior aide to Gadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, has met with and also spoken by phone to British officials, who repeated to him their public calls for the Libyan leader to step down.

Two people familiar with the matter, who both demanded anonymity to discuss details, said Ismail had been in Britain to visit relatives, and that, when officials became aware of this, they took the opportunity to hold talks.

Field insisted that Britain had not been involved in negotiating any possible trade-offs aimed at sealing Gadhafi’s exit from power. “There are no deals,” he said.

At an undisclosed location, thought to be in southern England, officials continued Friday to debrief Libya’s ex-foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who fled Tripoli and flew to England on Wednesday.

Koussa, 62, is the highest ranking member of Gadhafi’s regime to quit so far and had been a longtime aide throughout the tyrant’s 42-year rule.

David Solomont, the U.S. ambassador in Spain, said Gadhafi supporters appeared to be losing confidence in the likelihood he will cling to power. “I think he is becoming increasingly more isolated in his own country,” Solomont told reporters in Madrid on Friday.

A second senior Libyan official, Ali Abdessalam Treki — Libya’s former envoy to the U.N. and also a former foreign minister — announced that he had quit Thursday.

But in a telephone interview Friday with Libyan state TV, the country’s current intelligence chief, Bouzeid Dorda, denied Treki had defected.

Scottish prosecutors are planning to interview Koussa over the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people — most of them Americans. Libya acknowledged responsibility for the terrorist attack in 2003, and authorities in Scotland believe Koussa may hold vital information on who ordered to plot.

Six Libyans, including a brother-in-law of Gadhafi, were convicted in absentia for their roles in the bombing, and Libya agreed to pay $170 million in compensation, though stopped short of acknowledging responsibility.

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A Russian officer stands at the entrance of Russia’s plant for destruction of chemical weapons during an open ceremony of in Pochep, 250 miles southwest of Moscow, Russia, on Friday.

POCHEP, Russia — Russia will miss a 2012 deadline for destroying all of its chemical weapons, officials said Friday as they inaugurated a major new plant to dispose of them.

The facility at Pochep, in the western Bryansk region, is the latest of several plants built in Russia in recent years to dismantle its Cold War-era chemical weapons arsenals — the world’s largest.

As a signatory of the international Chemical Weapons Convention, the country already has destroyed about half of its chemical weapons, according to Russian officials.
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It is facing an April 2012 deadline for destroying all its chemical weapons, but Viktor Kholstov, the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade’s official in charge of chemical disarmament, said Friday the nation will need two or three more years.
He said the delay had been caused by a shortage of funds in the last two years.

‘Financial difficulties’
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a similar warning in August, saying that, because of the global financial crisis, Russia had run into “financial and technical difficulties” that would stretch the time required for completing the disposal of chemical weapons stockpiles by up to three years.

The United States has acknowledged it will miss the deadline, too. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller said at the United Nations last month that the U.S. had destroyed 78 percent of the chemical weapons stockpiles and is on pace to destroy 90 percent of its arsenal destroyed by April 2012.

Pochep is home to a stockpile of 7,500 tons of nerve agent — nearly 19 percent of the chemical weapons Russia is committed to destroy. Col.-Gen. Valery Kapashin, a military official in charge of storage and elimination of Russia’s chemical stockpiles, said Pochep is expected to destroy its stock of chemical weapons by the end of 2014.

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Palestinian men work on a construction site in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, near Jerusalem, Sunday, Nov. 14, 2010. (AP / Tara Todras-Whitehill)

JERUSALEM — Israel would be allowed to finish hundreds of apartments already under construction in West Bank settlements even if it agrees to a U.S.-drafted deal to renew a freeze on new construction, a diplomat familiar with the details said Monday.

he U.S. is pressing Israel to renew a settlement slowdown that expired in September in order to get stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks moving again.

In exchange, it is offering Israel military hardware and veto protection against UN resolutions critical of its policies. The U.S. routinely vetoes resolutions critical of Israel, but such moves are not automatic and are negotiated on a case-by-case basis.

Because of the Obama administration’s perceived toughness on Israel, it was not assumed in Israel that the U.S. would back it against the Palestinians at the Security Council if the Palestinians take their case to the UN in the event that peace talks fail.

Cabinet Minister Dan Meridor told Israel’s Channel 10 TV on Monday that U.S. veto protection against unilateral Palestinian UN initiatives would last for a year.

According to the emerging deal, construction would have to halt for 90 days on hundreds of additional homes begun after the first slowdown expired on Sept. 26. But that freeze would not apply to apartments already under construction that were exempted in the first slowdown, the diplomat said.

Officials had earlier given conflicting accounts regarding the fate of those homes.

“From our understanding, what was allowed under the previous freeze can continue. What was not allowed under the previous freeze cannot continue,” the diplomat said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the deal have not been finalized.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 2,140 apartments were under construction in the West Bank at the end of June, the last period for which there are official figures.

It is not clear how many of those homes have been completed since. But to give a rough idea of the pace of construction, nearly 800 apartments were completed in the first six months of the year.

The Palestinians have not said whether they would accept the deal, whose details they have not yet discussed with the Americans, they say. “Once we see it we will meet and have a response,” said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

The Palestinians have already expressed alarm that the proposal does not include construction in east Jerusalem, their hoped-for capital, but like the Israelis, would find it difficult to resist pressure from President Barack Obama to sign on to the deal.

The Israeli diplomat said the Americans have not set a deadline for an Israeli response.

Israeli settlement construction has become a major obstacle to peacemaking because the Palestinians see it as eroding their claims to both the West Bank and east Jerusalem as part of a future state that would also include the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The Palestinians say there is no point in negotiating if the Israelis continue to build homes on captured territory claimed by the Palestinians.

Israel captured all three territories in the 1967 Mideast war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but continues to control the other two areas, where half a million Jewish settlers live.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio that the White House wants to give — not sell — Israel 20 stealth jet fighters in exchange for renewing the moratorium.

The $3 billion will come “from the American administration, not from us,” he said, and not from an additional $3 billion in annual aid that Israel receives from the United States, Barak said in an interview from Paris.

Cabinet minister Yuli Edelstein had said Sunday that the jets would be sold to Israel.

Israel has already ordered 20 F-35 stealth jets — next-generation fighters that are set for delivery beginning in 2015. Barak said the U.S. proposal would provide an additional 20 of the warplanes, which developers say would be capable of reaching as far as Iran undetected by radar.

Barak said the supply of the planes was not contingent on concluding a final peace deal. A broad security arrangement that would involve far more military hardware would require a peace agreement, he said.

In a separate development, Israeli troops raided a house in the West Bank town of Tulkarem early Monday, seizing money and possessions of suspected Hamas supporter, Ali Dadu. More than $600,000 in cash, jewelry, computers and vehicles were seized from his home and business, said his son, Bara Dadu.

Ali Dadu was convicted in an Israeli military court in August of laundering money for Hamas, the militant Islamic group that rules the Gaza Strip, the military said.

The military said it was entitled to seize possessions equal to the value of the money laundered and said the confiscation was a “message.”

His son called the company a “family business.”

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AP – U.S. President Barack Obama, right, shakes hands with students during a visit to St. Xavier College in …

NEW DELHI – President Barack Obama appealed Sunday for India and Pakistan to resolve their conflict through dialogue, saying that regional instability will only serve to distract India in its rise as a global economic power.

Answering questions at a town hall meeting at St. Xavier College in Mumbai, Obama expressed support for two strong U.S. allies that see each other as archrivals.

Pakistan is an important partner in the U.S. war in Afghanistan, while Obama has called India a vital economic partner and expressed hopes its roaring economy can help create jobs back in the United States.

But mainly Hindu India and largely Muslim Pakistan — both of which developed nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the other — have fought three wars with each other since they gained independence from Britain in 1947 and they remain deeply suspicious of each other’s motives.

Indian officials have accused Pakistan’s spy agency of helping orchestrate the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, while Pakistan sees Indian ties to Afghanistan as an attempt to encircle it.

But with Pakistan reeling from extremist attacks, Obama said India had the biggest stake in seeing Pakistan succeed, stabilize and prosper.

“It is absolutely in your interests, at a time when you’re starting to succeed in incredible ways on the global economic stage, that you (don’t) want the distraction of security instability in your region,” he said. “So my hope is that over time trust develops between the two countries, that dialogue begins — perhaps on less controversial issues, building up to more controversial issues.”

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Hundreds of Korean family members separated for more than half a century by the Korean War embraced each other in tearful reunions Saturday, a day after troops exchanged gunfire in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the countries.

“I thought you were dead. Mother missed you so much,” 61-year-old South Korean Lee Min-gwan told his 90-year-old North Korean father, Ri Jong Ryol, according to pool reports by local reporters.

“I did not forget (you) every single day for the past 60 years,” Ri replied to his son, who was 100 days old when they were separated during the war.

Foreign media were not allowed to cover the reunions.

Lee was among 436 South Koreans who traveled by bus to North Korea’s Diamond Mountain resort Saturday to take part in the three-day reunions with about 100 North Korean relatives.

The event is the first in a two-part series of reunions. On Wednesday, about 200 North Koreans are to begin similar three-day reunions with their South Korean relatives at the same resort.

Millions of Korean families were separated after the Korean peninsula’s division in 1945 and the 1950-53 Korean War.

The reunions are emotional for Koreans, as most participants are elderly and are eager to see loved ones before they die. More than 20,800 family members have had brief reunions in face-to-face meetings or by video since a landmark inter-Korean summit in 2000. There are no mail, telephone or e-mail exchanges between ordinary citizens across the heavily fortified border.

The North Koreans told their South Korean relatives that they have led a “worthwhile life,” saying all North Koreans “have formed a big harmonious family under the care of leader Kim Jong Il,” North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.

North Korea proposed the reunions – the first in more than a year – in an apparent conciliatory move after tensions flared over the sinking of a South Korean warship. An international investigation concluded that a North Korean torpedo sank the ship, killing 46 South Korean sailors. North Korea, however, denies involvement.

North Korea has also freed the crew of a South Korean fishing boat seized in August. In an apparent response to its overtures, South Korea sent 5,000 tons of rice to North Korea this past week as part of 10 billion won ($8.5 million) in pledged flood aid.

However, in an abrupt reversal Friday of the apparent thaw in tensions, North Korea fired two rounds at a South Korean guard post in the Demilitarized Zone and South Korean troops immediately fired back. No injuries were reported, and the reason for the attack was unclear.

The shooting came just hours after North Korea threatened to retaliate for South Korea’s refusal last week to hold military talks.

The U.S.-led U.N. Command – which oversees the armistice that ended the Korean War – is considering launching an investigation of the incident, a command official said on condition of anonymity because a final decision had not been made.

The exchange highlighted the security challenges South Korea faces as it prepares to host next month’s Group of 20 summit in Seoul, just 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the border.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asked China on Saturday to use its influence with North Korea to keep it from taking any provocative actions ahead of the summit. Clinton made the request to Chinese Foreign Minster Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of a summit of East Asian leaders in Vietnam.

Communist North Korea has a track record of provocations against South Korea at times of internal change, external pressure or when world attention is focused on Seoul.

In 1987, a year before Seoul hosted the Summer Olympics, North Korean agents planted a bomb on a South Korean plane, killing all 115 people on board. In 2002, when South Korea was jointly hosting soccer’s World Cup along with Japan, a North Korean naval boat sank a South Korean patrol vessel near their disputed western sea border.

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Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai speaks during a conference on rural developments in the presidential palace in Kabul. (Reuters)

KABUL: The hope for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan after almost 10 years of war has increased, President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday, reinforcing his wish for a political settlement to the intractable conflict.

During a long address at his presidential palace in the Afghan capital, Karzai made no direct reference to peace talks between his government and the Taleban and other insurgents.

But he said Afghanistan and its allies were all working toward a settlement and that he hoped significant improvements would be achieved within one or two years.

“Hope for peace in Afghanistan has increased. The international community, our neighbors and all our people are endeavouring a lot toward it,” Karzai said.

“We are in contact with our neighbors … so that they endorse this process and we are hopeful that we all see improvement in the security situation and stability of our country within a year or two, compared to what we have today and yesterday,” Karzai said.

Violence is at its worst across Afghanistan since the Taleban were overthrown by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, with civilian and military casualties hitting record levels this year despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops.

Karzai has established a High Peace Council, the leader of which has indicated he will be flexible about tough conditions set by Karzai for any attempts at mediation with the Taleban.

On Wednesday, The New York Times newspaper quoted an unidentified source as saying talks to end the war involved “extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taleban commanders.”

US Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, said last week NATO-led forces had facilitated the passage of a senior Taleban leader to Kabul for talks with the Afghan government as part of the reconciliation process.

Petraeus said the discussions were preliminary and could not yet be characterized as negotiations.

Richard Holbrooke, the senior US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has said reports about secret talks between the Taleban and the Afghan government were exaggerated and warned against over-emphasizing what he described as unofficial contacts.

Such sentiments were backed by a source among the Afghanistan opposition based in Pakistan.

“Definitely there are contacts but, let me tell you, you can’t call them talks,” the source said.

The Taleban has repeatedly dismissed the reports of negotiations, repeating its position that all foreign troops must leave Afghanistan before talks are possible.

Karzai said on Wednesday Afghanistan was cooperating with the United States and its allies in Europe and elsewhere to confront terrorism. “But where our own people are angry and frustrated for various reasons, we want reconciliation and peace,” he said.

With Taleban attacks spreading out of traditional strongholds in the south and east, rising casualties and sagging support in the West for the war, Karzai in June won approval from a tribal gathering to seek a negotiated end to the conflict.

The New York Times report said Taleban leaders from the “Quetta shoura” – the leadership of the Afghan Taleban who are based in Pakistan – and one member of the Haqqani network had taken part in talks.

The Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network has been increasingly active in Afghanistan’s east and has been blamed for a number of recent high-profile attacks.

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Afghan President Hamid Karzai, second left, prays with members of the Afghanistan’s new peace council, from left, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani, and Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf during the inaugural session in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010. Calling the meeting a “source of hope” for the Afghan people, Karzai on Thursday hosted the inaugural session of the council set up to guide efforts to reconcile with the Taliban and other insurgent groups. Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe / AP

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Calling the meeting a “source of hope” for the Afghan people, President Hamid Karzai on Thursday hosted the inaugural session of a new peace council set up to guide efforts to reconcile with the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

Karzai has long called on insurgents to renounce violence, sever ties to terrorists and embrace the Afghan Constitution. Contacts are increasing between the government and insurgents to find a political resolution to the conflict, which is key to any U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan.

“The Afghan people in each province, district and village are expecting a lot from this peace council,” Karzai said on the ninth anniversary of the war.

“The high peace council is a source of hope for the Afghan people,” he said, adding that the international community is supporting the 70-member panel.

Publicly, the Taliban have said they won’t negotiate until foreign troops leave the country, yet many Taliban leaders have reached out directly or indirectly to the highest levels of the Afghan government. There have been no formal negotiations yet between the Afghan government and the Taliban, only some contacts and signals from each side, according to Karzai’s spokesman,Waheed Omar.

Addressing the opposition, Karzai said, “Once again I want to call on them to use this opportunity and welcome this effort and join in bringing peace in this country.”

Efforts to reconcile with the Taliban are not supported by all Afghans. Leaders of ethnic minorities remain concerned that negotiating with the Taliban will open a path for the hard-line fundamentalist group to regain power. Others argue that the peace council, comprising many members who fought against the Taliban, will have little success in guiding any talks.

Karzai said the government will cooperate with and assist the council but it would operate independently.

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AP – Hindu priests celebrate after hearing the first reports on the court verdict in Ayodhya, India, Thursday, …

LUCKNOW, India – Schools, shops and businesses reopened Friday as fears of violence ebbed in northern India following a court order to divide a disputed holy site between the Hindu and Muslim communities.

Thousands of government forces remained in the streets and on high alert, but the decision Thursday offered at least a reprieve in a battle over the site that has sparked deadly rioting in the past.
With both Muslim and Hindu lawyers vowing to appeal to the Supreme Court, public reaction to the verdict was restrained.

“The law and situation throughout the country has been extremely peaceful,” India’s Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said. “There have been no incidents reported to us.”
As the day broke, hundreds of devotees prayed at a makeshift Hindu temple at the disputed site in the town of Ayodhya.

R.K.S. Rathore, the senior superintendent of police, told The Associated Press there were no confrontations between Hindus and Muslims in the region.
Streets had been mostly deserted as the ruling was delivered, but vehicles returned Friday, ferrying children to schools. Shops and businesses reopened in Ayodhya, Varanasi, Lucknow and other potentially explosive places with a mixed population of Hindus and Muslims.

The Allahabad High Court ruled Thursday that the 64-acre (25-hectare) site should be split, with the Muslim community getting control of one-third and two Hindu groups splitting the remainder.
Muslims revere the compound as the former site of the 16th century Babri Mosque, while Hindus say it is the birthplace of their god Rama and contend a temple to him stood on the site before the mosque.
Thursday’s ruling said the Hindus could keep the area where the mosque once stood because the court determined it was the birthplace of Rama and archaeological evidence showed a temple had predated the mosque.

Over the years, the dispute triggered bloody communal violence and threatened India’s foundation as a secular, multicultural democracy.

The muted reaction to the potentially explosive verdict generated hope the increasingly confident country, with its growing regional clout and skyrocketing economy, has moved beyond its divisive history.

The dispute over the religious site in the city of Ayodhya, 350 miles (550 kilometers) east of New Delhi, has been one of the country’s most contentious issues.

In 1992, while the legal case lingered, tens of thousands of Hindu extremists ripped apart the mosque with spades, crowbars and their bare hands as security forces watched. A small tented shrine to Rama now stands on the site.

The demolition sparked nationwide riots that killed 2,000 people and shook the foundations of India’s claim to be a multiethnic, secular democracy.

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In this undated photo released by the Basque newspaper Gara Sunday Sept. 26, 2010, two unidentified and masked ETA members are seen at a table. The Basque separatist group ETA says it is willing to declare a permanent and verifiable ceasefire, and go further, in a bid to settle the troubled region’s long-running conflict with the Spanish government. The two masked ETA members say in an interview published in Gara on Sunday that the violent, armed group is prepared to abide by such conditions as set out in March in a document called the Brussels Declaration by 19 people, including four Nobel peace laureates. (AP Photo/Gara) (AP)

MADRID — Basque separatist group ETA reportedly says it is willing to declare a permanent cease-fire, verified by international observers, in a bid to settle the troubled region’s long-running conflict with the Spanish government.

The group did not specify if it would allow observers to oversee the destruction of its stockpile of weapons – the only absolute way of guaranteeing a cessation of violence – but hinted it was prepared to go beyond a mere declaration of a cease-fire.

It said it would act “if the conditions for such moves are created”, suggesting vague conditions about prison terms imposed on its jailed members and other “civil and political rights” issues.

ETA said the Spanish government should, “in general ease all the pressure, interference and violence” on Basques.

No one was available to comment at the Spanish Interior Ministry and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero did not refer to ETA’s interview at a political rally on Sunday.

Two unidentified and masked ETA members said in an interview published in Basque newspaper Gara on Sunday that the violent, armed group was prepared to abide by the Brussels Declaration, a document issued in March by a group including four Nobel peace laureates. ETA often uses Gara as a mouthpiece.

The Brussels document calls for impartial verification of any cease-fire adopted by ETA.

The interview quoted the ETA members as saying that, “ETA is willing to take that step, and also to go further, if the conditions for such moves are created.”

Three weeks ago ETA announced its 11th cease-fire in its 40-year violent campaign for an independent homeland but it did not mention the word permanent nor did it say it would be prepared to destroy its stockpile of arms.

Basque pro-independence political parties and splinter groups called on ETA in a statement released late Saturday to declare a permanent, unilateral and verifiable cease-fire leading to “dialogue and negotiation in all fields” under the “Mitchell Principles.”

U.S. Sen. George Mitchell mediated a peace process that led to the Good Friday peace accord in Northern Ireland, an agreement that included eyewitness verification of the destruction of the IRA’s weapons.

Earlier this month ETA also came under pressure to declared a verifiable cease-fire from pro-independence parties Batasuna and Eusko Alkartasuna. It has also been pressed for a change in strategy by some members currently serving prison terms for violent acts.

Spain’s government has repeatedly said progress can be made only when ETA renounces violence for good. It has rejected the latest cease-fire announcements as a gambit to buy time, regroup and rearm.

ETA’s last deadly attack was a July 2009 car bomb that killed two policemen on the island of Mallorca. The group is considered a terrorist organization by Spain, the European Union and the United States

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A South Korean soldier watches trucks which are carrying flour to North Korea, on the Tongil Grand Bridge in Paju, north of Seoul, September 16, 2010. The Gyeonggi Province office and civic groups of the South sent a total of 530 tons of flour to the North’s Kaesong on Thursday.
Credit: Reuters/Lim Young-sik/Yonhap

(Reuters) – Reclusive North Korea has proposed holding working-level military talks with rival South Korea, the Defense Ministry in Seoul said on Thursday, in a further sign of an easing in tensions on the divided peninsula.

The two Koreas have been in a stand-off since Seoul, with Washington’s backing, accused Pyongyang of torpedoing its warship in March, killing 46 sailors. The North denies the charge.

The apparent thaw in ties comes as the North struggles to deal with the impact of months of flooding on its already weak economy and prepares for political succession as the health of leader Kim Jong-il deteriorates.

Diplomats said on Wednesday that a conference of the Workers’ Party, which was meant to bring together the North’s political elite for first time in 30 years, had probably been postponed, due to what the South said were “internal problems.

Some diplomats and an aid group have said the most likely cause for the delay was flooding, although media reports have also speculated Kim’s health or disagreements over a reshuffle of the power structure could be holding up the start.

Heavy rain in the impoverished state over the past two months has hit food production that even in a good year falls a million tons short of the amount needed to feed its 23 million people.

The North proposed that the two sides discuss the Northern Limit Line, the de facto sea border off their west coast, and Seoul’s plan to fly anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the North, a Defense Ministry official said.

Such talks have not been held since the warship sinking.

News of the proposal came as the United Nations Command (UNC) and the North Korean military were due to conduct a fifth-round of colonel-level meetings at the border truce village Panmunjom on Thursday.

The UNC said the meetings were being held to discuss the date, agenda and protocols for general-level talks on armistice issues related to the sinking of the Cheonan corvette in March.

SHIFT AFTER CHINA TRIP

Seoul and Washington responded to the sinking of the Cheonan by staging a series of intimidating joint military exercises off the peninsula, and by squeezing the North’s already crumbling economy with tougher sanctions.

The allies have resisted calls by Beijing for the resumption of six-way disarmament talks on the North’s nuclear program, saying it was up to Pyongyang to show it is genuinely committed to dialogue and cutting tensions.

“As part of the process of re-engagement, there has to be a reengagement on the South-North axis as well, and I think there is some reason to be somewhat optimistic that at least part of that has begun,” U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth said in Beijing.

Pyongyang threatened to retaliate with force and fired a barrage of artillery off its coastline toward a maritime border, but there have been signs of a thaw since Kim’s surprise trip to ally China last month.

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