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Talks between the two Koreas at the vice-ministerial level to be held on Monday and Tuesday in Kaesong, North Korea will be the first between the authorities of the two neighbors in 10 months. The talks are the result of a telephone message from North Korea¡¯s Senior Cabinet Councilor Kwon Ho-Ung, the head of the country¡¯s delegation for ministerial-level talks, to South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young on Saturday.
¡°Let us open talks out of a cherished desire to quickly normalize the intra-Korean relationship,¡± the message said. Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo will head the South Korean delegation, while his Northern counterpart will be Kim Man-gil, a deputy director at the North¡¯s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.
A high-ranking government official said Sunday the talks would focus on normalizing the relationship, on the nuclear dispute and on humanitarian aid like fertilizer. North Korea asked for an unprecedented 500,000 tons of fertilizer earlier this year. ¡°We place importance on the fertilizer request as a humanitarian issue,¡± a high-ranking government official said, indicating Seoul has effectively made up its mind to give the fertilizer to Pyongyang. The South has been providing the North with 200,000-300,000 tons of fertilizer a year. North Korea may also bring up rice aid.
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said the talks would also help resolve the nuclear dispute, while a high-ranking official said, ¡°North Korea is also probably not merely thinking of resolving the fertilizer issue.¡±
It remains to be seen how Pyongyang will react to Seoul¡¯s attempt to make the Kaesong meet a stepping-stone toward the resumption of intra-Korean ministerial-level talks and stalled six-party nuclear disarmament talks.
A government official said North Korea was evidently avoiding extreme choices after it announced it has nuclear weapons and shut down a nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, ostensibly to process the spent fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium. ¡°In the end, the North may fully return to the six-party talks,¡± the official said. ¡°But it¡¯s also possible that it could ratchet up tensions by provoking a number of crises.¡±
Meanwhile, Japan¡¯s Asahi Shimbun daily reported Saturday an official with the U.S. State Department¡¯s Asia Pacific Bureau met with North Korea¡¯s UN deputy ambassador Han Sang-ryol last week and discussed resumption of the six-party talks. This was the first time the U.S. has used the ¡°New York channel¡± since special envoy Joseph DeTrani met with North Korea¡¯s UN delegation in December.
(Ahn Yong-gyun, agon@chosun.com )
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