This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. Test Flight Advances Plan for Regular Inter-Korean Air Link July 21, 2002 By DON KIRK SEOUL, South Korea, July 20 - A North Korean passenger jet flew today from North Korea to South Korea and then back to the North in a flight that may portend the first regular inter-Korean passenger service, as well as a step forward in the arduous process of dialogue between the North and the South. The Air Koryo flight took off from Sondok airport in the eastern North Korean city of Hamhung shortly before noon on an 85-minute flight to a newly built airport at Yangyang on the northeast coast of South Korea. The flight was viewed here as the start of the first regular air service between North and South Korea. The flight, by a Russian-built TU-134 plane, was seen as an experiment in inter-Korean relations, with 14 North Korean crew members arriving in South Korea and 8 South Korean technicians boarding for the return trip. The technicians will help build twin nuclear reactors at Kumho, in the North, under the auspices of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization. Yonhap, the semiofficial South Korean news agency, said "the new air route" had been opened "to transport the South's workers and materials for the construction of light-water reactors in the North." The report did not suggest that the service would be open to tourists, officials and business people, who generally go to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, by plane from Beijing. The determination of both North and South Korea to carry out their plan for the flight appeared to be evidence of the desire of both countries to keep talking to each other despite a skirmish on June 29 in the Yellow Sea in which four South Koreans were killed. Each side blames the other for the incident. South Korean officials said technicians assigned to the nuclear power project would be able to fly routinely on flights from Yangyang to the Sundok airport. Previously, they had gone by ship or had flown to Pyongyang and then traveled by road to the project at Kumho, on the east coast. North Korea's authorization of the flight was seen as evidence of the North's desire to encourage the project, the result of the framework agreement signed at Geneva in 1994 under which North Korea said it would stop trying to produce nuclear warheads in return for reactors that would produce power. The Korea Electric Power Company of South Korea is building the reactors at a cost of several billion dollars. In further evidence of the desire for inter-Korean dialogue, a 15-member delegation from South Korea arrived today in Pyongyang from Beijing to talk about North-South celebrations on Aug. 15, the day on which both Koreas observe the Korean people's independence from Japanese colonial rule in 1945. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/21/international/asia/21KORE.html?ex=1028216303&ei=1&en=fa8584906390c430 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company