BBC, 22, 23, 24 Aug 2009.

The first meeting between North and South Korean officials in nearly two years has taken place unexpectedly in the South Korean capital Seoul, which Pyongyang representatives are visiting for the ex-President Kim Dae-jung's funeral.

A spy chief said to be close to the North's leader Kim Jong-il met Seoul's Unification Minister Hyun In-taek. Later, a South Korean government official announced the envoys would meet President Lee Myung-bak on Sunday.

The delegates from the North have said they want better relations on the Korean peninsula. They are in Seoul to pay respects to late ex-President Kim Dae-jung.

The Northern official in charge of inter-Korean relations, Kim Yang-gon, said there was an urgent need to improve the frosty relations between the two countries. "After meeting with several people [in the South], I felt the imperative need for North-South relations to improve," Mr Kim said ahead of his talks with Mr Hyun.

Conciliatory gestures

Saturday's meeting is the first between officials from the two Koreas since the conservative Mr Lee came to power in Seoul in February 2008.

Relations soured when Mr Lee made South Korean aid conditional on North Korea's nuclear disarmament. In the past few months, North Korea has fired a long range rocket over Japanese territory and conducted an underground nuclear test.

But more recently, there has been a series of conciliatory gestures. Two US reporters and a South Korean worker were released from detention and Pyongyang said it was interested in resuming cross-border tourism and industrial projects.

Some observers believe that, with UN sanctions beginning to bite, the North is keen to boost cross-border tourism and trade that bring in badly needed foreign currency, our correspondent adds.

On Friday, the six officials from North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, wearing black suits and ties, placed a wreath of flowers on the steps of South Korea's National Assembly, where Kim Dae-jung is lying in state.

Mr Kim - who died on Tuesday at the age of 85 - devoted his presidency to improving relations between the two Koreas, still technically at war. He reached out to the North with aid - the main thrust of his "Sunshine Policy" that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, and held a historic summit with Kim Jong-Il in that year. His death seems to be having a similarly positive effect.

Before the funeral, South Korean leader Lee Myung-bak met senior North Korean envoys who came to offer condolences. The meeting is being seen as a significant thaw, as Mr Lee has been denounced as a traitor by the North.

The delegation from Pyongyang brought a message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, saying they hoped to ease bilateral problems.

More than 20,000 people attended the multi-faith ceremony outside the parliament building in Seoul.

A spokesman for Mr Lee declined to release the wording of the message that had come from his reclusive North Korean counterpart, citing the sensitivity of the matter. But he said it explained Mr Kim's thoughts on "progress on inter-Korean cooperation". He said Mr Lee had shared with the six visiting envoys his government's "consistent and firm" policy on North Korea, which has been to push for progress on nuclear disarmament.

After the meeting, Pyongyang's chief envoy, Kim Ki-nam said that "everything went well", although he too refused to give any details.

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