August 20, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-us-Sani 21, 1424

SEOUL, Aug 19: South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun expressed regret on Tuesday over anti-Pyongyang demonstrations here that have pushed inter-Korean reconciliation into stalemate.

“Burning North Korean flags and the portrait of Chairman Kim Jong-Il was inappropriate. It is very regrettable,” Roh said, according to his office.

“I hope such incidents will not be repeated,” he added.

The comments were seen as a conciliatory gesture toward North Korea which abruptly withdrew its athletes from the World Student Games due to open in the southern city of Daegu on Thursday.

Thousands of conservatives held an anti-North Korean rally last week in Seoul, burning North Korean flags and a life-size image of the North Korean leader.

They also called for strong ties between Seoul and Washington and urged the North to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme.

Roh instructed his cabinet to take prompt measures to allow the World Student Games to proceed smoothly. North Korea had promised to send a 218-member delegation, including 88 athletes and 24 journalists, to Daegu.

North Korea demanded an apology from the South and suspended inter-Korean exchanges which have moved forward despite a crisis over the reclusive country’s nuclear ambitions.

The North has not responded to South Korea’s request to reverse its decision to withdraw its athletes from the student games.

North Korean officials did not appear at a regular inter-Korean border contact Monday to exchange countersigned documents relating to accords on economic exchanges and investment.

Pyongyang also ignored Seoul’s efforts to establish contact at the inter-Korean buffer zone for discussion on economic talks due to start later Tuesday.

The North’s ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, condemned last week’s protest in Seoul as “the most serious provocation” against Pyongyang.

“South Korean authorities should officially apologize for the recent serious anti-North provocative act so as to make the people in the North acknowledgeable and understandable,” it said in a commentary Tuesday.

The North’s nuclear programme has fanned a widening rift between liberal and right-wing groups in South Korea, especially over US policy on the Korean peninsula.

An alliance of conservative groups denounced liberal groups for siding with Pyongyang, while the liberal groups criticized the conservatives for hurting inter-Korean reconciliation.

The exchange of accusations highlighted the volatile security situation on the peninsula ahead of multilateral talks next week in Beijing aimed at resolving the nuclear crisis.

It erupted last year when Washington accused Pyongyang of setting up a clandestine nuclear programme based on enriched uranium.

North Korea, which says it needs a nuclear deterrent against the United States, later expelled UN nuclear inspectors and has since claimed to have reprocessed 8,000 spent fuel rods for weapons-grade plutonium.

Further setbacks to inter-Korean relations came Monday when South Korean warships fired warning shots to drive back a North Korean vessel intruding into the South’s waters in the Yellow Sea, and US and South Korean troops began joint war games.

North Korea has branded the annual exercise a rehearsal for a pre-emptive strike on the communist country.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the end of the 1950-53 war.—AFP