South Korea on Monday (May 23) rejected the latest proposal by the North to hold military talks, saying Pyongyang first needed to take steps towards abandoning its nuclear arsenal.
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Seoul says an unspecified number of North Koreans working at a Pyongyang-run restaurant overseas have escaped their workplace and will come to South Korea. There have been rumors North Korean special forces are preparing a terror attack near the border, but Seoul has dismissed the speculation as groundless.
North Korea’s state media says a top diplomat who negotiated a short-lived 1994 deal with the United States to freeze its nuclear programs in exchange for worldwide aid has died.
South Korean officials believe overseas North Korean restaurants have been suffering economically since stronger global sanctions were applied against North Korea over its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year. Officials and analysts both consider the proposal a ploy by Pyongyang to show Seoul in a bad light, as well as a way to try ease crippling global sanctions.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck added in his daily press briefing that South Korea was not quick to forget the barrage of threats and insults from Pyongyang in the last few years.
So said that North Korea would not share nuclear technology with other countries.
“The proposal for talks this time around is part of its commitment to realize what Kim Jong Un said about the possibility of holding dialogue during the Party Congress”.
On Sunday, the North carried out the funeral of Kang, a former party secretary in charge of global affairs, who died of esophagus cancer at the age of 77, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). “There is no change of position from our government that North Korea’s denucleartization should be the top priority in regard to any dialogue with North Korea”, the statement read. South Korea denied their request, claiming that this was simply a propaganda tactic by North Korea.
The last such tests took place in January and February in 2016, when the North Korean army conducted a nuclear test followed by a satellite launch using ballistic missile technology, inviting tough United Nations sanctions. South Korea has denied the accusation.
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The restaurant from where the defectors left shows no traces of a North Korean establishment, and is called a “shabu-shabu” restaurant in order to evade U.N. Security Council sanctions, according to Jang.
