Koreans stop mutual insults

After the first summit between leaders from North and South Korea, the two sides have stopped their usual exchange of hostile propaganda.

South Korean monitors said North Korean radio stations had dropped reports on South Korean affairs which contained fierce denunciations of the Seoul government.

The authorities in the South have now responded by ending their own propaganda transmissions and the two sides have switched off loudspeakers, which sent insults across the armistice line established after the Korean War in the early nineteen-fifties.

For their part, the South Korean football authorities said the two countries would send a unified team to the Asia Cup in Lebanon in October.

The South Korean leader, President Kim Dae-Jung, is holding a special cabinet meeting to build on the results of the summit with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-Il. The United States has described the summit as being high on good feeling, but cautioned that exuberance should be tempered with wariness.

The Defence Department said there would be no immediate relaxation of its military stance on the Korean peninsula.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service