Two Koreas Put Peace Agreements Into Effect : Asia: The north’s premier foresees unification, but Seoul cautions that written pledges alone are not enough.

After 47 years of division and four decades of enmity, North and South Korea put two agreements into effect today rejecting nuclear weapons, forswearing violence and pledging exchanges that North Korean Premier Yon Hyong Muk predicted will lead to reunification by 1995.

“With diligence and sincerity and strict observance of the principle of national independence in implementing the terms of the agreements, I feel confident that 1995 will be the first year of unification,” Yon told South Korean Prime Minister Chung Won Shik in a dinner toast in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang Tuesday night.

“Distrust, antagonism and confrontation between us now belong to the past,” replied Chung, who led a party of 90 South Koreans from Seoul for a sixth round of north-south prime ministers’ talks. But the South Korean prime minister cautioned that “written pledges alone will never bring peace or unification.”

The two agreements were initialed in December. One pledges reconciliation, nonaggression, and exchanges and cooperation, while the other declares the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Copies of the signed agreements were exchanged today in a Pyongyang ceremony broadcast live on South Korean television.

South Korean President Roh Tae Woo had signed one set Monday in Seoul, and North Korean President Kim Il Sung signed a separate set Tuesday in Pyongyang. News of the developments in Pyongyang was relayed here by pool reports filed by 50 South Korean reporters traveling with Chung.

Lee Dong Bok, spokesman for the South Korean delegation, said the agreements “put an end to (north-south) repudiation of each other and the confrontation that marked the Cold War.”

But he added that the south’s demands in the two days of negotiations that the north allow Seoul to inspect the north’s nuclear facilities “will provide a decisive opportunity to test the true intent of the north . . . on their development of nuclear weapons.”

U.S. officials have warned that North Korea could use reprocessing and enrichment plants it is reported building north of Pyongyang to make nuclear bombs as early as 1993. North Korea, however, contends that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. About 40,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as a guarantee of American assistance to Seoul in case of North Korean aggression.

North and South Korea agreed to mutual inspections and forswore nuclear weapons development, reprocessing of nuclear fuel and the enrichment of uranium.

But the north, so far, has refused to set a date to carry out the inspections. It also has not yet completed procedures that would lead to separate, international inspections of its nuclear facilities under an agreement it signed last month with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Action also remains to be taken on the agreements to launch the exchanges that could, for the first time in its 44-year history, open up the Stalinist society of the Communist north. The two sides have pledged to establish committees on exchanges, political affairs and military matters within a month. But even then, debate on what might be done would just begin.

In signing the agreements Monday, President Roh warned that “failure to carry out practical measures for full implementation could incur more serious distrust.”

Chung, in his dinner speech, said the humanitarian needs of 10 million family members separated by the country’s division in 1945 and by the 1950-53 Korean War “should not be ignored any longer.” At least, he added, reunions of the elderly with their relatives should be permitted. Unless the “wounds” of the separated families are healed, “we cannot and we should not expect an era of genuine reconciliation to emerge,” Chung told Yon.

Chung, a native of North Korea, is from one of the separated families. Speaking to reporters aboard a train bound for Pyongyang, the South Korean premier was shown on TV pointing out a window toward Sariwon, his hometown. “I used to climb that mountain when I was a child,” he said.

Only twice in 20 years of negotiations have the North Koreans agreed to family reunions, and on each occasion, only 50 people were allowed to cross the demilitarized zone that separates the 900,000-man armed forces of the north and the 625,000-strong military of the south. No mail, no telephone calls and no exchanges of mass media have occurred since the two governments were established in 1948.

Chung acknowledged that trade between the north and south has been expanding rapidly. Kim Woo Choong, a leading South Korean businessman and chairman of the Daewoo Group, just completed a trip to North Korea and announced that he plans to build factories in the north. His company also may employ as many as 20,000 North Koreans in overseas construction projects, he said.