South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun in Seoul on Wednesday met with a group of guests from North Korea at the Presidential Office and had luncheon with them.

North Korean guests are part of government and civic delegations came to Seoul last Sunday for a series of joint celebration events commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Korean Peninsula's liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

Kim Ki-nam, secretary of the Central Committee of North Korea's Workers' Party, and Lim Dong-ok, vice chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, were among the group of North Korean officials who had luncheon with Roh.

The North Korean delegations concluded their four-day trip in South Korea and left Seoul for Pyongyang Wednesday afternoon.

The North Korean delegates' stay in Seoul stirred a whirlwind in South Korea for they did many things beyond expectation.

Two hours after their arrival, a group of 30 North Korean delegates, including Kim Ki-nam, paid a first ever visit to South Korean National Cemetery in southern Seoul where tens of thousands South Korean dead in the Korean War (1950-1953) are buried.

"It was a difficult decision to pay homage there," Lim Dong-ok said, adding "We thought that we should transcend everything in the era of reconciliation brought on by the June 15 inter-Korean summit."

What Lim said was referring to the summit between former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean top leader Kim Jong-il held on June 15, 2000.

Since then, the inter-Korean reconciliation accelerated with startup of many inter-Korean exchanges and projects.

Last Sunday evening, 182 North Korean delegates, along with 50,000 South Korean people, participated in the opening ceremony of the Independence Peace and Reunification Festival.

"I hope this festival will help improve reconciliation and trust between South Korea and North Korea, and make contribution to the development of the inter-Korean relations," North Korean chief delegate Kim Ki-nam said at the ceremony.

While South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young who headed the South Korean delegation to the joint celebration proposed the two countries to leave behind of the bitter history, sincerely reconcile and help each other.

Audiences cheered, waving Korean Peninsula flags that display the abstracted shape of the Korean Peninsula in blue. The high mood of the spectators just liked the hot weather on that day.

Civilian delegations from South and North Korea denounced Japan's distortion of wartime past in one voice by issuing a joint statement on Monday.

"The Japanese government should stop distorting history and cooperate in regional efforts to discover historical truths," the statement said.

Japan conducted cruel colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula during 1910-1945. The August 15 "Liberation Day" is a big annual holiday in both South and North Korea.

On Tuesday, Kim Ki-nam and several other North Korean delegates visited the South Korean Parliament in eastern Seoul and held luncheon meeting with South Korean National Assembly Speaker Kim One-ki. For the first time, North Korean high ranking officials accepted the South Korea's proposal to visit South Korean National Assembly.

Since the 2000 historic inter-Korean summit, the two sides had held 15 rounds of ministerial meetings, 10 rounds of economic talks, even, one round of general-level military talks.

But, the two legislatures of the two countries never made exchanges.

Both Kim One-ki and Kim Ki-nam agreed on the necessity to open the door of exchanges between the two countries' legislatures.

During North Korean delegations' visit in Seoul, the words heard most frequently from mouths of South Korean people were "reunification," "reconciliation" and "the same nation."

A this week opinion poll made by Gallup, a famous international opinion analyzing company, showed most of the young South Koreans have favor feeling over North Korea.

Among the respondents aged from 16 to 25 years old, 62.9 percent said they like North Korea, almost two times of the ones who said the opposite.

The poll results also can be used to explain the feeling of Kim Ki-nam, who said earlier Wednesday, "I came South Korea this time bearing North Korean people's aspiration for reunification. I could find that people here are also eager for reunification and improvement in relations between the two sides."

(Xinhua News Agency August 18, 2005)