The rivals, technically still at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, had all but cut ties since early 2010, when a South Korean navy ship was sunk by a torpedo that Seoul said was sacked from a North Korean submarine. The countries have been additionally unable to fix a date for an extra meeting, South Korean officers stated.
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According to a report by Xinhua news agency, the senior-level dialogue, which continued for two days at the DPRK’s border city of Kaesong, ended without any joint press conference.
The cash-strapped North wants the South to resume lucrative tours to its scenic Mount Kumgang resort, which Seoul suspended in 2008 after a female tourist was shot dead by a North Korean guard. Nonetheless, any negotiations between the rivals, who’re separated by the world’s most heavily armed border, have been thought-about an enchancment upon the state of affairs in August, once they threatened one another with war over land mine explosions in that maimed two South Korean troopers.
South Korean Vice Unification Minister Hwang Boogi, left, shakes hands with his North Korean counterpart Jon Jong Su during their meeting at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in Kaesong, North Korea, December 11.
But some said that all doors for further dialogue are not closed as the North still has the motivation to improve inter-Korean relations ahead of the May congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea. Analysts allege North Korea fears in that its citizens will grow to be influenced by the rather more prosperous South, which might loosen the authorities’s grip on power. None of them has-been given a probability to attend a 2nd reunion since the Koreas bar their citizens from visiting one another & exchanging letters & phone calls with out special permission.
Expectations for the talks on Friday and Saturday dropped last month when, in preparatory negotiations, the sides settled for a meeting at the vice-ministerial level.
After the negotiations, Pyongyang blamed the South for the breakdown.
Seoul, in turn, was expected to try to get Pyongyang to agree to hold reunions of war-separated families on a regular basis, a top humanitarian priority for the South, where more than 60,000 mostly elderly people are looking for relatives in the North. Seoul has said that the two issues should be separately discussed.
The standoff eased after marathon talks and an agreement on efforts to reduce animosity.
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The talks focused on the resumption of cross-border tours as well as reunion gatherings of families separated by war. North Korea says the tests are for defensive purposes.
