S. Korea to continue efforts for talks with N. Korea: minister

South Korean media earlier reported that the senior-level dialogue, which continued for two days at North Korea’s Kaesong Industrial Complex, ended on Saturday without any joint press release.

But in response, “North Korea unilaterally gave the position that the South Korean side does not seem to have any will to resume the tourism program, and so therefore, there is no need to negotiate any further”, Hwang said.

The talks focused on the resumption of cross-border tours as well as reunion gatherings of families separated by war.

North Korea reportedly proposed that if tourism on Mount Kumgang were to be reinstated in March or April, inter-Korean family reunions could be discussed. South Korea has referred to as for more participants and much more usual reunions, as hundreds of people in that had been on the waiting list have already died and lots of others have entered their 80s & 90s, still the North has refused to oblige.

The South’s Vice Unification Minister Hwang Boo-gi insisted that the two subjects should not be linked as he addressed reporters in Kaesong, just north of the Koreas’ border. 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. It is the first time in more than six decades that South Korea changed the KADIZ, which was drawn in 1951 by the U.S. Air Force during the 1950-53 Korean War.

The talks were the first of their kind in two years. Pyongyang denies any involvement.

Hwang said he had offered to resume discussions on Monday, but the North Korean delegation “conveyed its decision there was no need to continue talks”.

The talks started a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un said the country had developed a hydrogen bomb, a claim treated with scepticism by United States and South Korean intelligence officials.

In their opening statements on Friday, South Korea said the North’s nuclear weapons ambitions were an obstacle to better ties.