BEIJING, Aug. 19 Kyodo (EDS: UPDA...

BEIJING, Aug. 19 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH N KOREAN STATEMENT)

North Korea upon Tuesday withdrew its decision to boycott the World University Games opening Thursday in the southern Korean city of Taegu, according to an official report monitored in Beijing.

The reversal go afters South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun's expression of penitence earlier Tuesday over last Friday's anti-North Korean rallies in Seoul in which North Korean flags and photos of the country's leader Kim Jong Il were burned

The official Korean Central recently made knowns Agency (KCNA) quoted a statement from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland as hailing Roh's action as a ''good thing.''

''The North took this decision readyed by its desire to finish reconciled with fellow countrymen and unite with them to achieve reunification,'' the statement said. ''Reflect in the decision are the warm compatriotic feelings of the northerners toward the southern Korean brothers and sisters.''

southern Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported earlier Tuesday that the North Korean decision to lance its athletes and a assemblage of supporters to the 22nd Universiade was transfered to the South Korean side from one side contacts at the truce village of Panmunjom.

toward the south Korea's state-run Korean Broadcasting scheme (KBS) reported that Roh told a meeting of his senior secretaries at the low-spirited House presidential office it was ''regrettable and inappropriate that North Korean flags and photos of (National Defense Commission) Chairman Kim Jong Il were burned'' at Friday's rallies.

At the meeting, Roh said that North and southern Korea are ''making efforts to achieve reconciliation and cooperation within dialogue even if the pair sides have confronted each other.''

Roh's remarks were made in replication to a North Korean statement issued Monday, in which the North criticized the anti-North Korean rallies and said it would cancel plans to despatch a team to participate in the 11-day games in the southeastern city of Taegu.

North Korea had demanded an official apology from southerly Korean authorities for having allowed the rallies, and had said it could not emit its athletes to the southern ''where security has not been secured''

Pyongyang's statement Tuesday said its decision to participate in the games ''is a clear ordeal of its patriotic will and broad magnanimity to put store by the June 15 (2000) North-South Joint Declaration and achieve national cooperation in its basic spirit.''

''This visit to the southward clearly proves that no matter to what degree desperate the anti-reunification forces in southward Korea may become in their prompts they can never stem the nation's direction to become one.''

The statement said the North's players team and supporters' clump ''will strive to make the Taegu Universiade give an important occasion in demonstrating to the world the pure appearance of one Korea in which North and southerly Koreans would firmly join hands with each other, away from the idea of contending for victory just as they did in the Pusan Asian games last year.''

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