[USFK Forums] Korea Open High-Level Military Talks [AP]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Friday, March 3, 2006

Koreas Open High-Level Military Talks

By JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writer
Thu Mar 2, 5:34 PM ET

SEOUL (AP) - North Korea on Thursday demanded an end to South Korea's military exercises with the United States, as high-level inter-Korean military talks got under way for the first time in nearly two years.

North Korea routinely criticizes the South's drills with U.S. troops as Washington's rehearsals to attack the communist state, a charge the U.S. denies. The issue was a main reason that the North earlier cited in boycotting military talks with the South.

"They raised the issue in a principled manner in an opening speech," South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok told reporters in Seoul. "But I don't think it will act as an obstacle to the talks."

A report from the North's official Korean Central News Agency on the meeting said the country's delegation "sternly took the South side to task for its unreasonable behavior of cooperating with the U.S. imperialists in their military moves against (the North) quite contrary to the atmosphere of the military talks."

Two-star generals from the rival Koreas were leading this week's talks that opened at the border truce village of Panmunjeom inside the Demilitarized Zone earlier Thursday and are set to end Friday. The meeting was the third of its kind and the first since June 2004.

In their opening speech, South Korea proposed an agenda including seeking ways to prevent naval skirmishes along the western sea border, where the two sides have clashed before, and setting up joint fishing zones there, according to pool reports.

Other South Korean proposals include setting up a second defense ministers' meeting and working out an agreement to provide military guarantees for traffic on reconnected cross-border road and rail links.

The North agreed to discuss all the proposals Seoul said it had made, according to South Korean delegation spokesman Col. Moon Sung-mook.

Fishing boats from the two Koreas jostle for position along the poorly marked maritime border during the May-June crab-catching season.

The Koreas also fought deadly naval gunbattles in the area in 1999 and 2002, sinking a South Korean warship in the last clash and killing six sailors. The North said it also suffered casualties, but the number wasn't known.

At the talks' opening, the North's chief negotiator Lt. Gen. Kim Young Chul called for unity and cooperation to fight "foreign powers," a reference commonly used by Pyongyang to refer to the United States.

"Smaller countries should join hands under the spirit of nationalism and self-reliance," Kim said, according to a pool report.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire.

Relations between the two Koreas improved significantly since their leaders met for the first time in 2000.


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