Anti-Roh party says Korea summit pointless

SEOUL, Aug 8 (Reuters) South Korea's main right-wing party, and favourite to take the presidency in December, today dismissed a planned summit with the North as pointless politicking by the outgoing government in Seoul.

The two Koreas announced they would hold their second ever summit in Pyongyang, and the first in seven years, calling it a major move towards bringing peace to the peninsula which has been divided since the end of World War Two.

''We express deep concern that a president in his last year in office and ahead of presidential elections has promoted the inter-Korean summit again in Pyongyang and through secretive processes,'' the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) said in a statement.

''There's nothing we can expect from holding a summit at this point,'' it added, saying it looked like a campaign tactic ahead of the election.

Opinion polls show the GNP is almost certain to win the presidency. It holds a primary later this month to choose its presidential candidate.

Its two leading candidates have both said they would pursue a tougher line against the North if it misbehaves, accusing the current government of Roh Moo-hyun of being too accommodating, despite last year's missile launches and nuclear test by North Korea.

Some analysts said the North might be hoping the summit will give a boost to left-of-centre presidential candidates and North Korea's official media routinely accuses the GNP of trying to raise tensions on the peninsula.

In an article last month, the North Korean Rodong Shinmun newspaper described the GNP as a ''reactionary pro-US conservative party whose physical quality is to pursue pro-US flunkeyism, anti-reunification, fascism and confrontation between the North and South.'' Reuters SG DB1017