North and South Korea agreed Friday to hold rare talks next week, aimed at setting up a high-level dialogue that might provide the foundation for a sustainable improvement in cross-border ties.
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In recent weeks, South Korea has repeatedly proposed starting the government talks, but the North had not responded until Friday.
The United Nations spokesman’s office in NY and Seoul’s Unification Ministry declined to comment on the possible trip, which would be Ban’s first visit to the closed country in his capacity as United Nations chief.
The talks, to be held on November 26 in the border truce village of Panmunjom, will be the first inter-governmental interaction since officials met there in August to defuse a crisis that had pushed both sides to the brink of an armed conflict.
In a bid to carry out the deal, the two Koreas held reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War in late October.
The deal in August came after weeks of high tensions on the peninsula because of land mines that wounded two South Korean border guards.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye reportedly stated last week that she would like to open a dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if the North shows sincerity in giving up its nuclear weapons program and improving inter-Korean ties. It conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.
Thursday’s talks will be a preparatory meeting for high-level discussions, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said, on a date yet to be set.
A United Nations General Assembly committee on Thursday condemned those “gross” violations in North Korea, in a resolution adopted by a record majority.
“Now we’re back on again, the game’s afoot”, John Delury, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul, said.
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South Korea seeks to hold family reunions on a regular basis, calling on the North to allow such families to exchange letters.
