SEOUL, May 14: North Korea said on Saturday it would return to inter-Korean dialogue, raising hopes here that Pyongyang might come back to six-party talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme. North Korea’s chief delegate to the high-level inter-Korean talks, Senior Councillor of the Cabinet Kwon Ho Ung, called for the resumption of the government-to-government talks after a 10-month hiatus. In a message sent to his South Korean counterpart, Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young, Mr Kwon suggested the two sides hold talks at the vice ministerial level early next week in the North Korean border town of Kaesong.
“We have the pleasure to notify you that we will send three delegates and three suite members to Kaesong from May 16 to 17 for the working-level talks,” Mr Kwon was quoted as saying in the message. Mr Kwon said the move was “prompted by the desire to put relations between the two Koreas on a normal track in the idea of ‘by our nation itself’ at an early date”, according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.
South Korean Vice Unification Mininister Rhee Bong-Jo said he would lead a three-member delegation to the preliminary talks at Kaesong. “We hope that the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue will help facilitate the efforts to reopen the six-party talks,” Mr Rhee said, adding that ways of improving inter-Korean relations would also be on the agenda.
Pyongyang has persistently refused to discuss the nuclear issue at inter-Korean talks, arguing it must be dealt with at talks between Pyongyang and Washington. Mr Rhee said the North was expected to call for fertilizer aid from the South, adding Seoul would consider providing fertilizer aid of up to 300,000 tons of fertilizer.
The proposal for talks with Seoul came after North Korea’s No 2 leader Kim Yong-Nam and the South’s Prime Minister Lee Hae-Chan agreed on the need for the resumption of inter-Korean talks when they attended a summit of Asian and African leaders in Jakarta last month.
Mr Kim said at that time that the two Koreas should celebrate the fifth anniversary of a landmark inter-Korean summit in 2000 by making mutual efforts to develop more positive ties.
“Both sides should remain true to the idea of ‘by our nation itself’, the basic spirit of the joint declaration, under any circumstances,” Mr Kwon said.
North Korea has called for the South to stop siding with the United States and its allies in a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme, arguing Seoul is under the protection of the North’s nuclear umbrella.
Pyongyang has asked for 500,000 tons of fertilizer aid from the South for this year, but Seoul has made it clear that official talks must take place first to discuss such aid.
US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has indicated opposition to Seoul accepting the aid request, citing the need for “under-reacting”.
Talks between the governments of the two Koreas have been suspended since June last year when South Korea banned activists from visiting Pyongyang for the 10th anniversary of the death of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-Sung, in July.
Inter-Korean relations were also strained further by the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons drive and Seoul’s airlift of 468 North Korean defectors from Vietnam last year.
Pyongyang failed to turn up to inter-Korean high-level talks which were due to take place in Seoul in early August last year and boycotted six-party talks to resolve the nuclear standoff scheduled for Beijing in September that year. —AFP
