Bilateral talks between South and North Korea next week are crucial because they will provide a channel to persuade Pyongyang to return to stalled six-party nuclear talks, the South's president said on Sunday. Senior officials from the two Koreas are to meet on Monday and Tuesday in the North Korean city of Kaesong to deal with a range of issues including supplies of fertiliser, Reuters said. The high-profile gathering comes after the North proposed the meeting on Saturday in a telegram to Seoul's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young. "The resumption of inter-Korean talks itself is of great importance. More importantly, it would provide us a dialogue channel to persuade the North to return to the six-way talks," the spokesman for the presidential Blue House, Kim Man-soo, told reporters. The two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia met for three rounds of nuclear talks up to June 2004 with no substantive progress. A fourth round was originally set for last September, but has yet to take place. --More 1121 Local Time 0821 GMT
