[USFK Forums] Two Koreas agree to cooperate to ease tension along sea border [Yonhap]

[C. Y. Lee]

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

(4th LD) Two Koreas agree to cooperate to ease tension along sea borer: S. Korean official

2006/03/02 19:12
By Sohn Suk-joo

PANMUNJOM, Korea, March 2 (Yonhap) -- General-level officers from South and North Korea met for the first time in nearly two years Thursday and agreed to cooperate to prevent armed conflicts and set up a joint fishing area at their disputed sea border, South Korean officials said.

The two-day meeting, which will continue until Friday, was part of wide-ranging cross-border exchanges between the two Korean states which remain technically at war, since no peace treaty singed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean conflict.

"There were no concrete agreements but the two sides agreed to continue cooperative discussions tomorrow," Col. Moon Sung-mook, a spokesman for the five-member South Korean delegation, said after the first-day meeting which lasted nearly four hours.

Moon said Thursday's discussions were "businesslike," which raised hope for progress in this round of general-level talks, the first since June, 2004.

The meeting comes as the Korean states sought to ease tension along their disputed western sea border ahead of the start of a crab-catching season there later this month. The season peaks in June.

The area is the scene of two bloody naval clashes in 1998 and 2002 which resulted in heavy casualties on both sides. The skirmishes erupted as warships from both sides tried to protect their fishing boats.

South Korean officials said the broad agreement made in the opening session was tentative and needs to be backed up by concrete follow-up measures.

"We're neither optimistic nor pessimistic," Moon told reporters.

According to Moon, North Korea said the "root cause" of the dispute should be addressed first to ensure peace in the area, a demand it has repeated for years.

The western sea border was not clearly demarcated when the Korean War ended in 1953. The American-led U.N. Command unilaterally delineated the sea border, but North Korea has never recognized it.

The North demands that the maritime border in the Yellow Sea, set closer to its coast, should be re-drawn further south. South Korea has rejected the North's demand to safeguard its five islands dotting the border.

Other topics raised included South Korea's proposal to hold a second meeting of the two sides' defense chiefs and open a hotline between their regional naval headquarters guarding the sea border, Moon said.

The defense chiefs of the two Koreas met for the first time in South Korea in 2000 but North Korea has refused to host the next meeting amid nuclear and other tensions.

The general-level officers' meeting comes as the two Koreas were expanding cross-border exchanges despite the ongoing tension over the communist country's nuclear weapons program.

Inter-Korean exchanges keep expanding despite North Korea's refusal to join stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program. The North vows to stay away from the nuclear talks until the U.S. lifts financial sanctions over its currency counterfeiting.

Earlier Thursday, South Korea's Unification Minister Lee Jong-suk said in Seoul said that progress in the military talks would help resolve the prolonged international tension over the North's nuclear weapons program.

"Let's be patient and do our best," Lee said. "It's the first military talks in one year and nine months. Progress in this round would be conducive to the nuclear negotiations."
Inter-korean relations have warmed considerably since the first-ever summit of their leaders in 2000, but tension persists along their heavily militarized border. The North's 1.1-million-member military is the world's fifth largest.

On Tuesday, a freighter left South Korea with 6,000 tons of fertilizer to be donated to North Korea. The shipment was the first batch of 150,000 tons South Korea has promised to give the impoverished North for free this spring.

Last week, hundreds of separated family members in both Koreas were reunited via video link, the third reunion of its kind since last summer. Hundreds more South Koreans will be allowed to meet their Northern relatives face-to-face in late March for the first time since the Korean War.

According to South Korean officials, this week's military talks will also focus on how to militarily guarantee the security of a set of cross-border rail lines.

The rail lines, one through the western section of the border and the other across the eastern part, have been completed but have yet to undergo test runs. A set of parallel roads have been in use since last year for South Koreans traveling to the North.

A security guarantee for the cross-border rail links by the two sides' militaries is necessary. Former South Korean president and Nobel laureate Kim Dae-jung wants to visit North Korea by train in June for a second meeting with leader Kim Jong-il. The two met in the North's capital, Pyongyang, in 2000.

The last inter-Korean general-level talks were held in South Korea in June, 2004. North Korea promised to host the next round, but refused to do so after South Korea airlifted 468 North Korean defectors from Vietnam in July the same year.

ssj@yna.co.kr

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