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 The opportunity comes after a delegation headed by Hwang Pyong So,
believed to be the second highest-ranking official in Pyongyang
outside the family of leader Kim Jong Un, visited the closing
ceremony of the Asian Games in Incheon, west of Seoul, last week
with less than 24 hours' notice.
While the Pyongyang delegation rebuffed an offer to meet Park, they
met her prime minister and other officials and agreed to further
talks by early November.
It was the strongest signal in years from the unpredictable North
that it was willing to engage with the South. Both sides have been
technically at war since the 1950s, and ties have been poor in
recent years after Seoul accused the North of torpedoing one of its
navy ships and the North embarked on a program of nuclear tests and
rocket launches.
A senior government official said the South wants to discuss topics
at the upcoming meeting that could fast-track improving relations.
"When the talks resume, we'll be talking about sanctions and family
reunions," said the official, who is familiar with issues around the
North Koreans' visit but declined to be named.
 Willingness to discuss sanctions implies flexibility and possible
easing on the South's part, although the official did not give
details. The sanctions are a broad set of bans Seoul imposed on
Pyongyang in 2010 following the torpedo attack on a South Korean
corvette that killed 46 sailors.
South Korea blamed the North. Pyongyang flatly denied it was
responsible, and the issue has been an obstacle to re-engagement
ever since.
Park came to power last year on a platform that included working
towards unification but has so far achieved little given the frosty
state of affairs. The North's state media has occasionally hurled
personal invective at her.
She had advocated a policy of "trustpolitik", or gradually
increasing contact between the two Koreas that would be a stepping
stone for greater engagement and eventually unification.
If Park manages a breakthrough in relations with isolated Pyongyang,
it would be a signal achievement for a presidency that has been
dogged by the government's handling of the April ferry disaster in
South Korea that killed about 300 people.
Former South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan, who served
during a period of active negotiations on the North's nuclear
program, noted that Kim Jong Un, the third-generation leader of the
hereditary dictatorship in Pyongyang, wants to make a mark for
himself with the economy. His father, by comparison, had a
military-first policy.
"It is up to the government how to use this opportunity," Yoon said.
'STRANGERS SITTING DOWN TO EAT'
Support in South Korea for unification remains strong, with 76
percent of people in a July poll favoring it.
However, the anticipated cost of merging with the impoverished North
- estimated as high as $700 billion over 18 years according to a
South Korean think tank - causes many in the South to cringe at the
prospect of a near-term unification, preferring instead a gradual
process.
Park's party has said the time has come to make a start.
 "It's time for the government and this party to make sure the
kindling of light isn't blown out and we work in a bold way for
improving ties with the North," the ruling Saenuri Party leader Kim
Moo-sung told a party meeting this week.
Saenuri members are also discussing lifting the 2010 sanctions,
which the government has until now said will remain in place until
the North apologizes for the attack on the navy ship.
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The liberal opposition Democratic Party has called for an immediate
lifting of the measure.
Meanwhile, theories abound in Seoul as to why the North would have
chosen to send a senior delegation to the South at this juncture:
one holds that Pyongyang is trying to assert some sort of advantage
by making a first move, a tack it has pursued previously, only to
follow with a provocation. Pyongyang could also be trying to
convey that all is normal within its leadership amid rampant
speculation over the health and whereabouts of Kim Jong Un, who has
not been seen in state media for more than a month.
It may also just have been about sports, which the 31-year-old Kim
has made a focus of his tenure. North Korea finished a respectable
7th in the medals table in Incheon, a performance it played for
maximum propaganda value at home.
Throughout the 12-hour visit by the delegation, which also included
senior Workers' Party officials Kim Yang Gon and Choe Ryong Hae, the
atmosphere was friendly.
"For people who are basically strangers sitting down to eat, the
mood was good. There were jokes and talk about the Asian Games,"
said a South Korean official with direct knowledge of the visit,
adding that Sansachun, a local liquor, was served.
"Kim Yang Gon talked about the two sides meeting more often, that we
really needed to meet if we were to work things out."
HAUNTED BY HISTORY
For Park, re-engagement presents an opportunity to follow-up on her
landmark 2002 private visit to Pyongyang, where she met Kim Jong Il,
the current leader's father.
But any move towards rapprochement carries risks.
Five years ago, another delegation from Pyongyang was given a cool
reception by then-President Lee Myung-bak, a hardliner who bluntly
told his guests at the presidential Blue House: "Bad behavior will
not be rewarded."
Six months later, the South Korean ship was torpedoed.
"If the high-level dialogue goes well, and we have the family
reunions, and the North takes proactive actions that allows for the
(sanctions) to be lifted, in that very hopeful scenario, then there
can be some meaningful progress," Kookmin University professor Hong
Sung-gul said.
"If not we might be looking at the same set of mistakes we made
before."
(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park, Sohee Kim and Kahyun Yang;
Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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