SEOUL, Feb 14: The rival Koreas resumed rare, high-level talks today, seeking a compromise to allow a planned reunion for divided families to go ahead despite the North’s objection to overlapping South Korea-US military drills.
The talks have no fixed agenda, but the first round on Wednesday that ended without any tangible progress made the immediate focus of concern for both sides very clear.
South Korea wants the North to guarantee that the planned reunion for relatives divided by the 1950-53 Korean War will take place as scheduled at the North’s Mount Kumgang resort from February 20-25.
North Korea is insisting that the South must postpone the February 24 start of its annual military drills with the United States until after the reunion is over.
This was the crux of the issue being thrashed out today in the border truce village of Panmunjom, although some observers argue that the most important factor is the willingness of both sides to engage at all.
There are the highest level North-South talks for seven years and the first substantive follow-up to statements by the leaders of both countries — South Korean President Park Geun-Hye and the North’s Kim Jong-Un — professing a desire for improved inter-Korean ties.
A compromise on the overlapping family reunions and military drills could signal a willingness to explore other, far more contentious issues, according to Robert Carlin, a former US State Department official and contributor to the closely-followed North Korea-dedicated website, 38 North.
“When they want to be — which unfortunately is not all that often — both sides are capable of imaginative solutions to what, at first, look to be intractable problems,” Carlin said in post on the website.
There were already signs of a shift in position at Wednesday’s first round talks, with the North’s demand that the annual South Korea-US exercises be postponed.
North Korea routinely condemns the drills as provocative rehearsals for war, and its previous position has always been to demand their permanent cancellation.
By calling for this year’s exercises to be delayed, Pyongyang seemed to indicate that it could live with them actually going ahead — if Seoul and Washington conceded on the scheduling. (AGENCIES)
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