DATE=4/6/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=KOREAS AGREEMENT - S

NUMBER=2-288396

BYLINE=AMY BICKERS

DATELINE=TOKYO

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: South Korean presidential envoy Lim Dong-won has ended a four-day trip to Pyongyang where he secured North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's agreement to resume contacts with Seoul and the United States. V-O-A's Amy Bickers reports from our Northeast Asia bureau.

TEXT: Special envoy Lim Dong-won says his diplomatic mission to North Korea was a success. He told reporters in Seoul Saturday North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had agreed to re-engage in the peace process with South Korea and is willing to restart dialogue with the United States.

In the coming months, the two Koreas will resume meetings on economic cooperation, transport and tourism projects and reunions of families separated by the division of the Korean Peninsula.

These measures were agreed to at a summit in June 2000. But North Korea halted cooperation amid growing tension with Seoul's main ally - the United States.

The Bush Administration has taken a tough approach to North Korea due to suspicions that Pyongyang is developing weapons of mass destruction despite a 1994 agreement not to do so.

South Korea envoy Lim says North Korea has now agreed to meet with a U-S envoy - most likely a former U-S ambassador to Seoul. Washington has offered to hold talks without conditions so they could include not only U-S concerns about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program - but also North Korea's concerns about 37-thousand U-S troops in South Korea. (signed)

NEB/HK/AB/JO/KBK