Koreas agree to hold talks on factory complex, border issues
Source: Agencies |
June 7, 2013, Friday
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Print Edition
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NORTH Korea and South Korea yesterday agreed to hold talks on reopening a jointly run factory complex and other cross-border issues after months of deteriorating relations.
The envisioned talks could help rebuild avenues of inter-Korean cooperation that were obliterated in recent years amid hardline stances by both countries, though the key issue - its nuclear program - is not up for debate.
The North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, in a statement carried by state media, said it is open to holding talks with South Korea on reopening the Kaesong complex just north of the Demilitarized Zone separating the countries. The complex closed this spring.
It also proposed talks on resuming reunions of families separated by war, and starting South Korean tours to a mountain resort in North Korea.
Pyongyang offered to let South Korea set the time and venue, and hours later South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae proposed meeting in Seoul on June 12.
Pyongyang's statement came after Choe Ryong Hae, a North Korean military official and confidant of leader Kim Jong Un, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in late May and said that Pyongyang was "willing to accept the suggestion of the Chinese side and launch dialogue with all relevant parties."
China welcomed the Koreas' impending talks. "We hope they will cherish this hard-won momentum of dialogue, actively promote easing the situation and remain committed to peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye welcomed the North Korean agreement to government-level talks that Seoul had proposed in April.
"I feel it's fortunate that the North accepted the proposal for government-level talks even though (the acceptance) came late," she said.
The agreement to meet could represent a change in North Korea's approach, or could simply be an effort to ease international demands that it end its development of nuclear weapons.
Ryoo asked Pyongyang to follow through on its offer to restore its Red Cross communication line with South Korea by today so the sides could start discussing arrangements for the talks. The line is among several ties between the Koreas cut by North Korea in the last several months.
A likely partner for Ryoo in minister-level talks would be Kim Yang Gon, secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party. Kim visited Kaesong in early April before North Korea withdrew all its workers from the park.
The decade-old Kaesong complex after Pyongyang cut border communications and access, then pulled the complex's 53,000 North Korean workers.
The envisioned talks could help rebuild avenues of inter-Korean cooperation that were obliterated in recent years amid hardline stances by both countries, though the key issue - its nuclear program - is not up for debate.
The North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, in a statement carried by state media, said it is open to holding talks with South Korea on reopening the Kaesong complex just north of the Demilitarized Zone separating the countries. The complex closed this spring.
It also proposed talks on resuming reunions of families separated by war, and starting South Korean tours to a mountain resort in North Korea.
Pyongyang offered to let South Korea set the time and venue, and hours later South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae proposed meeting in Seoul on June 12.
Pyongyang's statement came after Choe Ryong Hae, a North Korean military official and confidant of leader Kim Jong Un, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in late May and said that Pyongyang was "willing to accept the suggestion of the Chinese side and launch dialogue with all relevant parties."
China welcomed the Koreas' impending talks. "We hope they will cherish this hard-won momentum of dialogue, actively promote easing the situation and remain committed to peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye welcomed the North Korean agreement to government-level talks that Seoul had proposed in April.
"I feel it's fortunate that the North accepted the proposal for government-level talks even though (the acceptance) came late," she said.
The agreement to meet could represent a change in North Korea's approach, or could simply be an effort to ease international demands that it end its development of nuclear weapons.
Ryoo asked Pyongyang to follow through on its offer to restore its Red Cross communication line with South Korea by today so the sides could start discussing arrangements for the talks. The line is among several ties between the Koreas cut by North Korea in the last several months.
A likely partner for Ryoo in minister-level talks would be Kim Yang Gon, secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party. Kim visited Kaesong in early April before North Korea withdrew all its workers from the park.
The decade-old Kaesong complex after Pyongyang cut border communications and access, then pulled the complex's 53,000 North Korean workers.
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