October 07, 2007	Sunday	Ramazan 24, 1428

SEOUL, Oct 6: The two Koreas talked of possible joint oil field development in the North during their summit and may discuss it further in a new economic cooperation committee, local media on Saturday quoted South Korea’s finance minister as saying.Talks in Pyongyang between the leaders of North and South Korea, only their second summit since the 1950-53 Korean War, ended on Thursday.

“South Korea discussed the development of resources in North Korea, including oil fields,” the finance minister, Kwon O-kyu, said at a news briefing on Friday.

Kwon said the oil development issue may continue to be discussed at talks of the proposed joint committee for inter-Korean Economic Cooperation.

The committee is to be formed by upgrading the existing inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Promotion Committee, to speed up bilateral cooperation.

South Korea has been seeking ways to develop and benefit from rich mineral resources in North Korea.

Earlier, during the meeting, North Korea called for joint exploration of its mineral resources with the South, a possibility Seoul estimates could cut its annual mineral import costs by 2 trillion won ($2.18 billion).

But Pyongyang has released very little information on the potential of any possible oil fields. It currently imports all the crude to feed its one working refinery, and most of its oil products, from neighbouring China.—Reuters