North, South Korea end talks without any agreement

Seoul’s three-member delegation was led by Vice Unification Minister Hwang Boo-gi, and his DPRK counterpart was Jon Jong-su, vice director of the secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea.

North and South Korea on Saturday wrapped up two days of high-level talks aimed at easing cross-border tensions, with no agreement and no set date for further discussions.

No major breakthrough was reached in the meeting of vice-ministerial officials in Kaesong, and the two sides chose to extend the talks into another day. “After the general election (in Seoul) next April, South Korean politics will embark on preparations for the presidential election, and North Korea’s interest on inter-Korean talks will decrease after the party congress in May”, Cheong Seong-chang, the chief of the Unification Strategy team of Sejong Institute said, last Tuesday.

The situation on the Korean peninsula deteriorated seriously in August after North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire in the western part of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

But after the latest negotiations fell apart, Pyongyang would likely focus on preparations for the conference rather than dialogue, Yang said, adding an upcoming South Korean-US joint army exercise would also mar the prospects for fresh talks.

Analysts said restarting the tour programmes would have been a useful propaganda victory for him as well as providing a source of much-needed hard currency.

Pyongyang on Saturday “made every possible honest effort” and offered “constructive proposals” to tackle most urgent and realisable issues such as resumption of tour to North Korea’s scenic spot of Mt Kumgang and reunion of separated families from both sides, the state-run KCNA news agency reported.

The negotiations are the latest in a series of measures to improve relations after a tense standoff that began in August, when two South Korean soldiers were seriously hurt by landmine explosions along the border.

The two countries are technically still at war, as the conflict ended only with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Pyongyang denies any involvement.

Seoul has called for holding separated-family reunions on a regular basis, but Pyongyang maintains a lukewarm stance. Analysts allege North Korea fears in that its citizens will grow to be influenced by the rather more prosperous South, which might loosen the authorities’s grip on power.

The two Koreas have held 20 rounds of family reunions so far since the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.

Seoul has said that such a one-off event is too insufficient to fulfill the hopes of around 66,000 elderly people to meet their kin in North Korea.