North and South Korea discussed the stalled six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear plans in Jakarta on Saturday, but there was no breakthrough on the impasse. It was the second high-level meeting between the two sides after their first such contact in five years the previous day. South Korea's Yonhap news agency, however, said the second-ranked leaders of the two Koreas, who met on the sidelines of an Asia-Africa summit, did agree that stalled bilateral dialogue between them should resume.
The North had broken off formal contact with the South last July after Seoul airlifted 468 North Korean defectors from Vietnam, angering Pyongyang.
Kim Yong-nam echoed the North's existing position on the six-party talks, saying Pyongyang would return to the table "if the climate is mature," Yonhap quoted Lee's spokesman as saying. But on bilateral dialogue, the spokesman quoted Kim as saying: "Based on the principle of co-existence of our people, it is the North's firm position to realise talks between the authorities of the North and South."
The meeting between Lee and Kim was at the most senior level since June 2000, when South Korea's then-President Kim Dae-jung met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang.