Roh to Propose Meeting With N. Korean Leader

A successful Olympic Games safely behind him, President Roh Tae Woo plans to travel to New York later this month to make a new proposal to the U.N. General Assembly for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, Yonhap news agency reported today.

The two leaders have never met but Kim suggested last month that he could meet Roh if the president of the South was prepared to travel to Pyongyang to discuss a nonaggression pact and the withdrawal of 43,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.

Roh, who has said he wants to lay groundwork for the reunification of the peninsula before his term ends in 1993, is due to give a policy speech in Parliament on Tuesday in which he is widely expected to accept Kim’s invitation.

In a ceremony today marking the anniversary of the founding of the Korean nation, Prime Minister Lee Hyun Jae called for the resumption of dialogue between the two Koreas, which have remained divided since the end of World War II.