SEOUL. Sept 8: South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung has urged the United States to improve ties with North Korea while insisting that major hurdles to inter-Korean dialogue have been removed, officials said today, reports AFP.

The request was made when Kim met US President Bill Clinton on the margins of the UN Millennium Summit in New York Thursday. presidential spokesman Park Joon-Young told journalists there.

Kim told Clinton that the historic in ter-Korean summit in June had led the North's leader Kim Jong-Il to withdraw Pyongyang's three-point pre-conditions for dialogue with the South.

Theyr included the withdrawal of 37,000 US troops from the South, the establishment of a confederation In any eventual reunification and the abolishment of the South's anti-North Korean National Security Law.

Kim Dae-Jung has said the

North's leader now accepts the need for the US military presence and the changes to the South's draconian security law have been proposed.

Now that these three issues were resolved, it is necessary for ties between North Korea and the United States and Japan to be improved for the stability and economic recovery in North Korea." Kim was quoted as telling Clinton.

Clinton expressed "unreserved support" for Kim Dae-Jung’s constructive engagement policy, the spokesman said.

The two also agreed to try to ease North Korean anger over a protocol dispute with American Airlines security officials at Frankfurt airport.

North Korea's nominal head of state Kim Yong-Nam cancelled a planned flight to New York for the UN summit in protest at body searches, which were imposed because the North Is still considered a state that sponsors terror-

ism.

Clinton repeatedly expressed regret over the incident, asking Kim Dae-Jung to help the United States soothe Pyongyangs anger.

The spokesman said the South Korean and US leaders did not discuss Kim's new peace initiative for the Korean peninsula as they "were preoccupied with other items."

The South Korean side had planned to propose a so-called "two-plus-two" format to work out a new Korean peace system to replace the 47-year-old armistice agreement signed at the end of the Korean War.

As the armistice agreement has not yet been replaced by a peace treaty, the two Koreas are still at war technically.

Under the proposal South and North Korea would first reach an agreement on a new peace regime, which would then be signed by the United States and China as guarantors. -