Cheong Wa Dae announced Friday that President George W. Bush and President Kim Dae-jung will visit an American military base near the South-North border and travel to Dorasan Station a starting point in the reconstruction of the inter-Korean railway during the US leader's visit to Korea. The two presidents are expected to issue a joint call there for the North to resume dialogue with the South and the US. Dorasan Station is 300m from the Demilitarized Zone.

The leaders will sit down for talks next Wednesday to fine tune their North Korea policies and discuss the Stalinist state's weapons of mass destruction.

The visit comes amid growing concern across the peninsula that US-North Korea relations are worsening, after Bush categorized Pyongyang as part of an axis of evil. Washington says it is looking at the three-day trip as an opportunity to coordinate policies on the North with Seoul.

According to a National Security Council spokesman, Thursday, Bush is expected to reaffirm support for the Kim administration's 'sunshine policy' of engaging Pyongyang and make clear the US position to hold talks anywhere and at anytime with the communist state.

The spokesman added Bush will also urge North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to reciprocate President Kim Dae-jung's historic visit to Pyongyang in June 2000, as well as urging dialogue to diffuse tensions.

The US president is scheduled to arrive at 5:00pm on February 19 at the USAF base in Osan, south of Seoul and will hold a summit with Kim the next day.

In related news, President Kim told a meeting of religious leaders and former officials that he understood why the democratic US did not believe in the Stalinist North Korea, but dialogue was a different matter. He said there was no difference between his and Bush's views on weapons of mass destruction, missile proliferation and terrorism.

(Kim Min-bai, baibai@chosun.com )