KOREAS RESUME CABINET-LEVEL TALKS FOR FIRST TIME IN SEVEN MONTHS.

SEOUL, March 1 Asia Pulse - For the first time in seven months, South and North Korea have resumed ministerial talks in Pyongyang to deal with various inter-Korean issues such as Seoul's humanitarian aid, economic cooperation projects and reunions of families separated by the division of the country.

The four-day Cabinet-level talks opened on Feb. 27 amid signs of a new detente after a recent landmark agreement at the six-party talks over North Korea's phased nuclear dismantlement.

South Korea's five-member negotiating team, led by Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung, arrived in the North's capital on a direct charter flight from Seoul and attended a gala dinner hosted by North Korean Premier Pak Pong-ju. Lee's North Korean counterpart is Kwon Ho-ung, chief councilor of the cabinet.

The 50-strong South Korean delegation, including 12 pool journalists, is staying at the Koryo Hotel for the duration of the meeting.

North Korea is widely expected to ask for the immediate resumption of the South's rice and fertilizer aid, while the South hopes to use it as leverage to make the North take quick steps in complying with the six-party agreement.

Other items on the table will be opening cross-border railways and exchanging raw materials from the South for the North's minerals, according to South Korean officials.

But a pro-North Korean newspaper published in Japan forecast that the recognition of the political and social systems of the other side will be an important agenda item during the ministerial talks. The Choson Sinbo, a newspaper for the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, pointed out that major issues at the talks should be the acknowledgement and respect of ideology and system of the other party, which it said is essential to eliminate the institutional barrier left by the old system of confrontation.