2 Korea Premiers Meet, Differ on How to Ease Division : Asia: The south emphasizes the need for first building mutual trust. The north insists on priority for military issues.

The prime ministers of North and South Korea began a second round of talks Tuesday in the Communist capital of Pyongyang, with both sides again setting different goals for relieving the tensions of 45 years of national division.

South Korean Prime Minister Kang Young Hoon urged North Korea to allow at least elderly Koreans to visit long-separated relatives, in north and south alike.

But his counterpart, Yon Hyong Muk, declared that relieving military tension and “abolishing the danger of war” must be given priority.

The exchange, at the start of four days of talks, took place at a banquet in Pyongyang. Copies of both speeches were made available in Seoul.

The opposing approaches were characteristic of 18 years of off-and-on talks between north and south, with the south emphasizing the need for first building mutual trust and the north insisting on giving priority to military issues.

Still, the north’s Prime Minister Yon made no complaint about the presence of about 43,000 U.S. troops in South Korea. He and Kang both recalled with emphasis a series of grass-roots gestures of friendship that began last month at the Asian Games in Beijing, where North and South Korean spectators joined in cheering both teams.

In a separate move Tuesday, North Korean Red Cross officials telephoned their South Korean counterparts to propose a reopening of negotiations Nov. 15 on the subject of uniting separated relatives. The last such talks broke down last December.

Kang said that about 10 million Koreans are separated from their families, and he called this “the most urgent issue facing us.”

“If it is difficult to promptly allow all separated relatives to visit each other, we propose that at least the elderly people, 60 and over, be allowed to visit their native communities for family reunions,” Kang said.

To date, the two governments have permitted only 200 people, 100 from each side, to visit relatives in the other country. By contrast, Kang complained, more than 1 million Chinese have traveled back and forth to visit relatives in Taiwan and China.

Kang, a native of the north who fled when Soviet occupation troops arrived in 1945, called for the two governments to overcome mutual distrust by “recognizing each other’s existence.” He urged that free travel and economic, cultural and humanitarian exchanges be permitted. South Korea, he complained, must “import resources from faraway countries even when they are abundantly available in the northern half of our land.”

In his speech, North Korea’s Yon said nothing about uniting separated relatives, or about economic or cultural exchanges or mutual recognition. Instead, he focused on the confrontation of nearly 1.5 million North and South Korean troops at the Demilitarized Zone--”with their weapons drawn, aimed at each other.”

“We should relieve this tension, establish peace and realize unification,” he said. “Easing tension and abolishing the danger of war should be the mission of those gathered here tonight.”

The Demilitarized Zone was established after the Korean War of 1950-53, which began with an invasion of the south in an attempt by the Pyongyang government to seize South Korea.

Kang’s visit constitutes the second part of an exchange that began with Yon’s visit to Seoul last month.

South Korean reporters traveling with the mission said they received a cool reception. There was no crowd to greet them, and only a few passersby waved as they were driven from the railway station to a guest house, where they were greeted by Yon.

North Korean guides told reporters the reception was muted because the south had failed to accede to Yon’s demand in September for the release of three southerners imprisoned last year for visiting North Korea without government authorization.

BACKGROUND

The 45-year-old division between the two Koreas has been one of the enduring reminders of the Cold War. The 1950-53 Korean conflict left two powerful armies facing each other, and intermittent talks over the last two decades have failed to end suspicions from the war and differing social systems. Each side has much to gain in agreements that would allow family reunions, economic relations and an easing of the military burden. Recent moves by the north’s postwar backers, Moscow and Beijing, to develop ties with the south give the north added reason to deal with the south to avoid increasing isolation.