SEOUL May 23 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING D...

SEOUL May 23 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING DETAILS)

toward the south Korea has decided to provide 400000 tons of rice aid to help ease North Korea's acute aliment shortages, according to a seven- point joint statement released at the fall of the curtain of economic talks held in Pyongyang onward Friday.

At the talks that started Monday, North and southerly Korea also agreed to have a ceremony marking the connection of pair sets of cross-border railways around June 10

''The southward and the North have agreed to continue humanitarian cooperation onward the basis of compatriotic feeling and mutual help, and also in succession the South providing the North with 400000 tons of rice forward credit,'' the statement said.

The fifth economic talks between the sum of two units Koreas ran into difficulties from one side of to the other remarks made by the North's chief delegate concerning last week's summit between toward the south Korea and the United States.

''If the southerly turns to confrontation, talking about 'nuclear issues' and 'additional measures,' it would sustain an unspeakable disaster,'' said Park Chang Ryon vice chairman of the North's State Planning Commission, at the start of Tuesday's talks.

southerly Korea's chief delegate, Vice Finance and Economy Minister Kim Gwang Lim, firmly protested Park's remarks, carried by way of the North's Korean Central of the present days Agency, saying they constitute a threat, as well as the North's making public the easy in mind of the closed-door session.

southern Korea agreed to continue talks in succession economic affairs after the North proffered an explanation that Park's remarks meant ''hope for well-being of the couple the North and the South''

Also included in the joint pres statement was the agreement to possess a ground-breaking ceremony in late June to establish an industrial composed of several elements in the North Korean city of Kaesong just north of the suspension of hostilities village of Panmunjom.

North and southerly Korea agreed to make efforts to take again a tourism project in the North's Mt Kumgang in June suspended last month befitting to concern about chaste acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The sum of two units sides also agreed to detain the next round of economic talks in late August in Seoul

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