[USFK Forums] South Korea seeks breakthrough in talks with North Korea [AFP]

[C. Y. Lee]

[Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Wednesday, December 14, 2005]
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South Korea seeks breakthrough in talks with North Korea

AFP, Mon Dec 12,11:23 PM ET

South and North Korea will hold high-level negotiations here this week amid dimming prospects for the resumption of six-nation talks on ending the Stalinist country's nuclear weapons program.

The inter-Korean ministerial dialogue on South Korea's resort island of Jeju comes after North Korea said six-party talks would be suspended indefinitely because of US financial sanctions imposed on Pyongyang. North Korean delegates led by Kwon Ho-Ung, a cabinet councilor, are scheduled to arrive later in the day for the three-day meeting that starts on Wednesday.

South Korean officials say they will pressure Pyongyang to agree to an early resumption of the six-party talks involving China, the two Koreas, the United States, Russia and Japan. "We hope to have frank and sincere discussions on the North Korean nuclear issue," Kim Chun-Sig, spokesman for South Korea's delegation, told reporters.

He indicated South Korea could use economic aid for North Korea as leverage to resume the six-party talks at an early date. North Korea agreed in principle at the fourth round of talks in Beijing in September to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for diplomatic and economic benefits and security guarantees.

The latest session, however, ended in stalemate last month, with Pyongyang urging Washington to lift sanctions on North Korean firms.

The US Treasury Department in September told US financial institutions to stop dealing with a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, which it accused of being a willing front for North Korean counterfeiting.

A month later the US blacklisted eight North Korean companies allegedly involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Relations between North Korea and the United States were strained further last week when US ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow called Pyongyang a "criminal regime" engaged in illegal activities including money laundering and counterfeiting.

North Korea angrily denounced Vershbow's remarks as a "declaration of war," insisting the United States was "faking up lies" to disrupt the six-party forum.

South Korean officials said the inter-Korean dialogue would cover other thorny issues such as prisoners of war, military talks and the delayed opening of cross-border railways.

Inter-Korean economic exchanges have greatly increased following an inter-Korean summit in 2000. North Korea, however, has balked at holding high-level military talks with South Korea on easing tension, after two rounds of general-level talks in June 2004.

South Korea says 546 prisoners of war captured by North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War and some 485 civilians, mostly fishermen abducted since the conflict, are still alive in the North. North Korea has confirmed that only 21 South Korean prisoners of war and abducted civilians are still alive in the communist country.

Kim said South Korea would also propose measures to work out a new peace mechanism for the Korean peninsula that would replace a fragile truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.