North and South Korean officials meet to set up higher-level talks

While North Korea has largely ignored worldwide calls to curtail its weapon ambitions, the South could also point to the virtual nuclear power status afforded to Japan, its neighbor to the east and another USA ally.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is believed to have demoted one of his top officials and sent him to a rural collective farm for reeducation, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers.

The North is likely to suggest resuming the inter-Korean tour program at Mount Geumgang in the North, a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation.

Agreement on the dialogue was reached at working-level talks held Thursday in the border truce village of Panmunjom, which ran late into the night.

South Korea has been seeking the ability to enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel, which it says will help reduce import costs and support its exports of nuclear reactors.

Representatives from North and South Korea have met to lay the groundwork for higher-level talks, following a turbulent period in relations between the two sides.

Kim, a towering figure in South Korea politics who led fights against a succession of dictatorships from the 1960s through the 1980s, died of a severe blood infection and acute heart failure on Sunday. As you said, it is set for December 11th it will be a vice-ministerial level talks and will take place at the inter-Korean joint industrial complex in Kaesong.

The talks are a fresh attempt at dialogue between the rivals, which have all-but cut off ties since 2010, when a South Korean navy ship was destroyed by a torpedo that Seoul said was sacked from a North Korean submarine.

Jeong said Seoul had pushed for the Kaesong meeting to prioritise the issue of regular reunions for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, which cemented the division of the Korean peninsula.

The meeting was the first between Seoul and Pyongyang since high-level negotiations defused border tensions on August 25, when North Korea had declared a semi-state of war.