By Joint Press Corps & Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

PYONGYANG _ Unification Minister Chung Dong-young and North Korea’s No. 2 leader, Kim Yong-nam, met here in the North’s capital on Thursday, to resolve the nuclear standoff and other issues, according to officials.

On the last evening of the four-day event to mark the summit between the two Koreas in June 2000, Chung again urged North Korea to return to the six-party talks on its nuclear weapons program, reaffirming Seoul’s promise to present an ``important proposal.’’

Chung, who is leading a 40-member government delegation, met Kim, the nominal head of state chairing the North’s Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, without any other attendance.

It was unclear how Kim responded to Chung’s remarks at the closed-door session. But, in opening remarks during a meeting with the Southern delegates the previous day, he argued there has been ``no change in U.S. hostile policies’’ toward the North.

North Korea has been boycotting the six-party talks, hosted by China and involving the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia, citing what it calls a hostile U.S. attitude against it.

South Korea is utilizing cross-border meetings this month, including this week’s festival as well as next week’s inter-Korean ministerial talks in Seoul as an opportunity to persuade the North to return to the multilateral denuclearization talks.

The largely civilian festival, including a group of 295 South Korean civic leaders took part in, concluded with a grand closing ceremony and an evening dinner gala. Members of the civilian delegation, led by Paik Nak-cheong, a professor emeritus at Seoul National University, also met with Kim Yong-nam in a separate meeting earlier that day.

The delegations are to return to Seoul on Friday in separate chartered planes via the direct air route established in June 2000.

However, the fifth anniversary of the historic inter-Korean summit was marred by ideological discord in the South where the country’s conservative forces tried to find fault with the ongoing joint festival.

The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) criticized Yoo Hong-joon, head of the Cultural Heritage Administration and a member of the government delegation, for singing a North Korean song at Wednesday’s dinner party.

``Does it make any sense that a ranking government official gets swayed by his mood and sings a song praising the (North Korean) people’s army,’’ said Rep. Maeng Hyung-kyu, chairman of the conservative party’s policy committee, demanding his resignation.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr