North Korea Opens Door to Talks with South Korea

North Korea has pressed for the resumption of aid-for-nuclear disarmament talks that have been stalled since early 2009; Washington and Seoul have said Pyongyang must first follow through on previous nuclear commitments.

In late December, the North's defense commission warned South Korea and the rest of the world not to expect any change from North Korea after Kim's death and said it would never deal with Lee's conservative government, which ended a no-strings-attached aid policy to the North after taking power in 2008.

Thursday's statement called Lee a “traitor,” but it didn't repeat earlier pledges to never talk with Seoul.

“It appears North Korea is cooling off after being infuriated at South Korea during the mourning period for Kim Jong Il,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea professor at Seoul's Dongguk University. “North Korea understands its relations with South Korea should improve for progress in its relations with the United States.”

The Korean peninsula is still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim, Sam Kim and Foster Klug in Seoul, South Korea, and Mike Ives in Hanoi, Vietnam, contributed to this report.