Seoul and Pyongyang held vice ministers’ talks in North Korea’s border city of Kaesong from Friday to Saturday, ending up without any agreement. The two sides met for 40 minutes on Saturday morning, before adjourning to consult with their respective capitals. North Korea, nevertheless, maintained in that it could not additional discuss the separated families situation with out the South agreeing to restart joint tours to the North’s scenic Diamond Mountain resort.
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On the abrupt cancellation of a Beijing concert by North Korea’s all-female propaganda band Moranbong, Jeong said Seoul has yet to figure out the background.
Seoul had hoped to host the meeting, but Kaesong Industrial Complex was chosen following working-level discussions a fortnight ago – the North’s facility houses more than 120 South Korean firms and is seen as a last shred holding together bilateral ties.
The mutual recriminations after the failure of North and South Korea’s latest talks underline the depth of distrust and animosity that have plagued cross-border relations for decades.
The South Korean side, however, rejected discussion of several core issues including the resumption of the Mount Kumgang tour and made unreasonable assertions, which caused the talks to bear no fruits, the state media said.
Because of South Korea’s position and attitude, it added, the talks ended without anything coming to fruition.
Analysts say North Korea fears that its citizens will become influenced by the much more affluent South, which could loosen the government’s grip on power.
The August accord also included family reunions in October organized at short notice in a bid to defuse the rising tensions.
In August both sides agreed to pursue high level talks and cultural exchanges as part of a settlement to resolve a cross border confrontation that threatened to escalate into war.
Hwang said he had explained to Pyongyang on the first day that “nuclear weapons are an impediment to advancing South-North relations, so the issue must be resolved”.
“It seems that the negotiators thought it was meaningless for them to continue talking when there was such as large gap between their views”, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Dongguk University in Seoul.
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Millions of family members were separated by the war that sealed the division of the Korean peninsula.
