Yonhap
4/19/2007
South and North Korea on Thursday discussed a range of economic issues, including food aid, at a belated session of talks after the North withdrew preconditions for the formal opening, pool reports said.
But the plenary session, which took place about eight hours later than scheduled, did not appear to go smoothly as Chu Dong-chan, chief of the North Korean delegation, left the conference room, slamming the door shut behind him, just half an hour after the start of the meeting.
“Both sides delivered their position to each other during the meeting. We have to be engaged in further discussion, but the situation is not that good,” Chin Dong-soo, chief of the South Korean delegation, was quoted as saying by reports from Pyongyang, the venue of the talks.
The session was supposed to be held at 10 a.m., but failed to materialize because the North abruptly demanded to exchange keynote speech texts prior to the meeting.
The North also called for seeing a draft of a written agreement on the South’s provision of rice aid, as well as a draft of the joint press statement to be issued at the end of the four-day talks.
But the South rejected all of the requests, calling them “unprecedented” and “unproductive.”
Instead, they started the closed-door plenary session at 5:30 p.m., and the keynote speech texts were exchanged just before the session in the same manner as in previous meetings, a South Korean delegate was quoted as saying.
“Let’s work hard together and come up with good results for the Korean people,” Chu said in his opening remarks.
Chin echoed his view, saying, “Let’s pool efforts to make the talks benefit us mutually and become a stepping-stone on the path of joint prosperity.” The South is scheduled to hold a press briefing in Pyongyang to explain what they discussed during the meeting later Thursday.
South Korea was to call upon North Korea to fulfill its promise to shut down its main nuclear reactor at the earliest possible time.
According to South Korea’s keynote speech text obtained by pool reporters, Vice Finance Minister Chin was to call for the North’s immediate action on the denuclearization process.
“The quick implementation of the Feb. 13 agreement is a shortcut to draw firm international support for inter-Korean economic cooperation,” the text said.
South Korea was also to propose to conduct test runs of reconnected cross-border railways sometime in May, according to the reports. The two sides are scheduled to hold a series of negotiations until Saturday, the last day of the four-day meeting.
“The overland transportation of economic cooperation goods will be offered in consideration of the high cost of logistics from maritime transportation,” a South Korean delegate said, asking to remain anonymous.
The two Koreas will also address the North’s request for 400,000 tons of rice in the form of a loan. South Korea is likely to accept the request unless the situation surrounding the North’s nuclear reactor shutdown gets worse.
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.
The inter-Korean dialogue came just days after the communist nation failed to meet a Saturday deadline to shut down and seal its nuclear facilities under a landmark six-nation agreement signed in Beijing in February.
Last Friday, North Korea said it would take 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 the 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.
In the February accord, 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 it failed to do so because of technical complications.
Meanwhile, during a luncheon meeting with South Korean delegates, Chu flatly denied that North Korea is considering sending back the USS Pueblo to the United States.
“Return? Why do we return such an important thing?” Chu said when asked about press reports on the possible repatriation of the warship.
The USS Pueblo, docked on the bank of the Taedong River in Pyongyang, is used to stoke anti-American feeling among the North Korean public. It was seized on an intelligence-gathering mission off North Korea’s east coast in 1968.
On Wednesday, U.S. Republican Sen. Wayne Allard introduced a resolution demanding that North Korea return the Pueblo in exchange for a Korean battle flag captured in the 19th century and now on display at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland.
South and North Korea had already expressed their commitment to carry out what they had already agreed upon at the latest ministerial meeting held in March. The Koreas agreed to discuss food aid and schedules for test runs of cross-border trains as part of efforts to expand economic cooperation for the sake of joint prosperity.
“Let’s implement already agreed-upon issues, overcome barriers bravely and advance grandly as united people,” Kwon Ho-ung, chief councilor of the North Korean cabinet, said in a welcoming speech during the reception for the South Korean delegation Wednesday evening.
In response, Chin stressed that the two sides should upgrade their economic ties. “I expect that the meeting will actualize and develop economic cooperation,” he said.
The six-member South Korean delegation arrived in Pyongyang Wednesday afternoon on a direct flight from Gimpo Airport. The delegates attended a banquet hosted by Kwon, following a brief meeting with their North Korean counterparts.
Also high on the agenda are test runs of the cross-border railways in the first half of this year, and the implementation of an economic accord in which South Korea was supposed to provide raw materials in exchange for the North’s natural resources.
North Korea abruptly called off scheduled test runs of the railways in May under apparent pressure from its hard-line military. The cancellation also led to the mothballing of the economic accord. North Korea’s subsequent missile and nuclear weapons tests further clouded hopes of implementing the agreement.
The tracks, one line cutting across the western section of the border and the other crossing through 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.
South Korea has repeatedly called on North Korea to provide a security guarantee for the operation of the railways, but the North has yet to respond on the issue.
The reconnection of the 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.
In 2005, South Korea agreed to provide the North with $80 million worth of raw materials 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.
