Koreas agree on railway test runs, rice aid

Yonhap
4/22/2007

South and North Korea on Sunday agreed to conduct test runs of cross-border railways next month and make efforts to ensure a military guarantee for their safe operations.

The South also agreed to provide 400,000 tons of rice to the impoverished North in late May, but the accord reached by the two sides did not include a commitment by North Korea to take steps toward dismantlement of its nuclear programs, said pool reports from Pyongyang, the venue of the talks.

The Koreas announced a 10-point agreement on test runs of cross-border railways, rice aid and expanded economic cooperation after they engaged in marathon talks. The four-day talks stretched into an extra day as the two sides failed to thrash out differences by the deadline.

“The two Koreas will hold working-level talks to discuss operations of cross-border railways in Kaesong on April 27-28,” the agreement said. They agreed to make efforts to secure a military security guarantee prior to conducting the test runs on May 17.

The security issue was a main sticking point as South Korean officials contended that the test runs will be “meaningless” if there is no safety guarantee on the part of the North Korean military.

In May 2006, North Korea abruptly called off the scheduled test runs under apparent pressure from its hard-line military.

The two sides were originally scheduled to issue a joint press statement at 2 p.m. on Saturday, but they held a series of overnight negotiations to settle remaining differences and work out the wording for a final draft of a joint statement.

On Thursday, the North Korean delegation stormed out of the conference room to protest the South’s call for the North’s quick implementation of a denuclearization agreement, but talks resumed later as scheduled.

“During the talks, we made clear that it will be difficult to provide rice unless North Korea acts to fulfill the Feb. 13 agreement,” Chin Dong-soo, chief of the South Korean delegation, said in a press briefing held in Pyongyang after the announcement of the agreement.

South Korea also agreed to provide raw materials to the North to help it produce clothing, footwear and soap in June in return for its natural resources. A South Korean delegation will visit envisioned development sites in the North that month. Working-level negotiations on this issue will be held in the North Korean border city of Kaesong on May 2-4.

Shortly after the North conducted missile tests in July, the South suspended food and fertilizer aid. But fertilizer aid was resumed in late March, a few weeks after the two sides agreed to repair their strained ties.

During the talks, the North called for receiving raw materials from the South in exchange for providing its natural resources “close to the time when railway test runs are conducted,” the pool reports said.

But the South made clear that it will provide the North with US$80 million worth of raw materials only after the two sides conduct the test runs.

The reconnection of severed train lines was one of the tangible inter-Korean rapprochement projects agreed upon following the historic summit between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000.

The tracks, one line cutting across the western section of the border and the other crossing the eastern side, were completed and set to undergo test runs. A set of parallel roads has been in use since 2005 for South Koreans traveling to the North.

In 2005, South Korea agreed to offer raw materials to the North to help it produce clothing, footwear and soap starting in 2006. In return, the North was to provide the South with minerals, such as zinc and magnesite, after mines were developed with South Korean investments guaranteed by Pyongyang.

But the economic accord was not implemented as North Korea cancelled the test runs of the railways last May.

The pool reports said the South pushed to include the use of overland transportation in a clause of the agreement, but the two sides failed to see eye-to-eye on the issue. They agreed to hold talks in Kaesong to discuss ways of advancing into third countries in the field of natural resource development.

The next economic cooperation meeting will be held in the South in July 2007, and the two Koreas agreed to reach an agreement on the prevention of flooding in shared areas near the Imjin River and implement it after exchanging a document in early May.

The latest inter-Korean agreement came just a week after the communist nation failed to meet the April 14 deadline to shut down and seal its nuclear facilities under a six-nation agreement signed in Beijing in February.

North Korea has said it would take the first steps toward nuclear dismantlement as soon as it confirms the release of its funds frozen in a Macau bank since September 2005.

Macau’s financial authorities unblocked the North’s US$25 million in Banco Delta Asia, but the deadline passed with no word from the North on whether it has confirmed the release of the funds or when it will start implementing the initial steps.

Under the Feb. 13 agreement, North Korea pledged to shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow U.N. inspectors back into the country within 60 days. In return, North Korea would receive aid equal to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea.

The U.S. promised to resolve the financial issue within 30 days, but failed to do so because of technical complications.

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