North Korean leader Mr Kim Jong-il has agreed to consider a South Korean plea to end the stand-off with the US, a South Korean envoy said today.
The North tried to turn the tables by demanding that the United States remove all its nuclear weapons from South Korea - an action Washington says it carried out 12 years ago.
After a three-day visit to the Northern capital, Pyongyang, in which the enigmatic Mr Kim snubbed the South's envoy by failing to attend expected talks, Mr Lim Dong-won said the communist leader had accepted a letter from South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.
The North's reclusive leader had relayed a verbal message through officials promising to reply after considering Seoul's call to reverse the moves that have triggered the second Korean nuclear emergency since 1994, Mr Lim told a news conference on his return.
South Korea had hoped Mr Lim's visit would open the way for a resolution of the three-month-old crisis, but Mr Kim's snub of the envoy appeared to underscore the North's insistence it would talk only to the United States.