
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 20, 1990                   TAG: 9007200041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA                                LENGTH: Medium

SOUTH KOREA ASKS FOR END OF COLD WAR

President Roh Tae-woo called today for an end to cold war on the Korean peninsula and proposed unrestricted travel between communist North Korea and South Korea.

"The time has come to end total division," Roh said in a major nationwide radio and television broadcast. "Korea must not remain the world's only land still partitioned by cold war politics."

Acceptance by North Korea would open the peninsula for the first time since 1945 and set the stage for national unification.

Roh noted in the speech that President Kim Il Sung of North Korea proposed conditional free travel Jan. 1, and said, "I am convinced there will be no obstacle."

Roh said South Korea would open its border at Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone for five days as of Aug. 13 and "accept brethren from the North without restrictions."

Roh said North Koreans would be allowed to freely visit any place in the South and meet anyone they want. He challenged North Korea to offer the same provisions to South Koreans.

Roh's Cabinet will meet Saturday to review procedures for allowing travel to take place. South Korean law now makes it a violation of national security to visit North Korea without government permission, which has been rarely given.

The Korean peninsula was divided into communist North and capitalist South in 1945 at the end of World War II. The two fought a bitter three-year civil and ideological war in the early 1950s and have remained hostile.

The proposal by both Koreas calls for the border to be opened at Panmunjom, the truce village in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula in half. Panmunjom, about 35 miles north of Seoul, is the site of periodic North-South talks.

Panmunjom is inaccessible to the average Korean citizen from either side. The border between the Koreas is the most heavily fortified in the world, with more than 1 million armed soldiers behind concrete bunkers and barbed wire.

The southern half of the Panmunjom area is guarded by the U.S.-led United Nations Command. The command has said that it would honor the wishes of the Koreans regarding a border opening.

The two Koreas are to sign an agreement July 26 setting a date for their first prime ministers' talks, expected to be held in Seoul in September.

by CNB