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2 Koreas, in Sign of Thaw, Agree to Rare Talks at High Level At North’s Suggestion, Koreas Open Dialogue
(about 2 hours later)
SEOUL, South Korea — Senior officials from North and South Korea have agreed to meet on their border on Wednesday in the highest-level government contact between the two Koreas since the North’s nuclear test early last year. SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korea on Wednesday started their highest-level government dialogue since the North’s nuclear test last year prompted fears of armed conflict on the divided Korean Peninsula.
The rare high-level meeting was another sign of slightly thawing relations on the divided peninsula, following a recent agreement to allow scores of families divided by the Korean War to meet. North Korea first proposed the officials’ meeting on Saturday, South Korean officials said. The meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom on the border between the two Koreas was first suggested by the North, which has recently called repeatedly for better ties. The United States, whose secretary of state, John Kerry, travels to Seoul on Thursday, remains deeply skeptical, as does Seoul, about the motives of the North Korean government.
“There is no preset agenda for this meeting,” said Kim Eui-do, a spokesman for the Unification Ministry. “But we expect to discuss issues of key concern, such as holding reunions of separated families smoothly and making them regular events.” American and South Korean officials have accused North Korea of using a charm offensive to draw its adversaries into dialogue and win concessions while distracting attention from its ever-expanding nuclear and long-range missile programs.
It is unclear why the North is making overtures to the South, or whether they will last. Relations slumped to a nadir last year after the North’s third nuclear test and resulting international sanctions. Since then, attempts for warmer ties have been sporadic, with the North, for instance, agreeing to family visits in August but delaying them in September. Still, the meeting at Panmunjom gives senior South Korean officials a rare opportunity to gauge whether the North’s policies are shifting under its new leader, Kim Jong-un. Relations between the two countries reached a low point in 2010 when a South Korean Navy patrol ship sank, killing 46 sailors, in an explosion that the South blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack.
For the moment, reunions are scheduled to be held from Feb. 20-25. If held, the reunions would be the first since 2010, when the humanitarian program was halted amid souring relations. The ties remained strained later that year, as the South curtailed trade and humanitarian aid to the North and the North attacked a South Korean island with artillery. The North further rattled the region by launching a long-range rocket in December 2012 and conducting its third nuclear test last February. When the United Nations Security Council tightened sanctions, the country lashed out with threats of nuclear war.
The North’s agreement to allow for family reunions was unusual because of its timing. North Korea has often refused to discuss or has even canceled talks for such reunions when the South and the United States have staged joint military drills. A new set of joint drills is scheduled to begin Feb. 24. The North did threaten to cancel the visits again last week unless the exercises were called off, denouncing them as a rehearsal for invasion. North Korea has toned down its threats since last year, and in his New Year’s Day speech, Mr. Kim said he wanted to improve relations with the South. Responding to South Korea’s demand that it prove its sincerity with action, North Korea agreed last week to hold reunions this month in which hundreds of older Koreans would be allowed to meet their relatives for the first time since the three-year Korean War ended in 1953.
South Korea rejected the demand, calling the war games defensive exercises. North Korea made its overture for a high-level meeting of officials days later. The North had threatened to cancel the reunions, blaming the annual joint military exercises with the United States that the South was scheduled to start on Feb. 24.
The representatives at the meeting are set to include Kim Kyu-hyun of South Korea, a career diplomat who holds the rank of vice cabinet minister in the administration of President Park Geun-hye, the Unification Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. Mr. Kim’s office coordinates policies on North Korea and other neighbors. “We approach today’s talks with an intention of probing for opportunities to open a new relationship on the Korean Peninsula,” Kim Kyu-hyun, the South’s chief delegate, told reporters in Seoul before heading to Panmunjom on Wednesday.
Won Dong-yon, a veteran North Korean negotiator, will represent his country’s government during the talks at Panmunjom, where the truce that put an end to direct conflict in the three-year Korean War was signed in 1953. Mr. Kim, who holds the rank of a vice cabinet minister and is a deputy director at the national security office at the presidential Blue House, is the most senior South Korean to meet North Korean officials since Park Geun-hye was sworn in as South Korean president last February.
Mr. Kim said that although there was no predetermined agenda, he would focus on reaffirming the agreement on family reunions.
Talks to hold minister-level dialogue fell through last June when the two Koreas squabbled over protocol.
North Korea wanted the South to lift the economic sanctions it had imposed on the North after the sinking of the warship in 2010. It also wanted the South to let humanitarian aid, economic investments and tourists from the South flow once more into North Korea.
Last month, President Park indicated that she would increase humanitarian aid and provide some development assistance for the North if Pyongyang agreed to ease tensions through the reunions and other good-will gestures.
During her election campaign, Ms. Park also envisioned building a “world peace park” inside the Demilitarized Zone, a heavily armed strip of separating the two Koreas. She also mentioned the long-held South Korean dream of linking its railroads to China and Russia through North Korea.
Yet Seoul and Washington insist that any significant aid or investment should be preceded by progress in ending the North’s nuclear weapons program.