Kim Jong-il, North Korea's leader, yesterday sent a message to Lee Myung-bak, his South Korean counterpart, calling for improved ties on the peninsula.
Although a tentative rapprochement has been building for weeks, Mr Kim's direct approach is a sharp change of tack from the North, which has always viewed the conservative Mr Lee as an obstacle to cordial relations. Pyongyang's state media have spent 18 months spitting vitriol at the South Korean president, furious that he has made aid contingent on progress in nuclear negotiations.
A team of North Korean envoys delivered the oral message to Mr Lee at a meeting in Seoul, where they were paying their final respects to Kim Dae-jung, the former South Korean president, who died on Tuesday.
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