“Agendas for the high-level talks will be pending issues in connection with the improvement of inter-Korean relations”, the ministry said in a statement, without elaborating.
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Further details will be fine-tuned through working-level contact.at the border village of Panmunjeom, where the talks were held on Thursday.
In the end, it was a matter of protocol – the North felt insulted by the South’s nomination of a vice minister as its chief delegate – that smothered the initiative before it had even drawn breath.
North Korea also has a track record of linking humanitarian subjects, such as reunions of families split by the inter-Korean border, to concessions it seeks from South Korea, such as curtailing military exercises.
The tour has been put on hold since 2008, following the death of a South Korean female tourist by a North Korean solider at the scenic resort.
Tensions between North Korea and South Korea had escalated in August after two South Korean soldiers were injured in a land mine explosion in a demilitarized zone.
That meeting ended with a joint agreement that included the commitment to resume high-level talks. “The South is expected to raise the issue of family reunions”.
He cited Pyongyang’s irritation with recent South Korean military exercises and Seoul’s participation in global moves to censure the North for human rights violations.
South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reportedly states that authorities are also requesting that men are “also being instructed to pay homage to Mr Kim by copying his trademark swept-back bouffant that emerges upwards from the shaved patches above his ears”.
At the meeting, the South Korean side was represented by Kim Ki-woong, assistant minister of the ministry’s Special Office for Inter-Korean Dialogue, while the North’s delegation was led by Hwang Chol, a senior official of the North’s Committee for Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland.
Kim Il Sung ruled from 1948-1972, a period that saw his country fight a brutal war with South Korea.
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“Since previous year, North Koreans have been ordered to crack down on capitalist ideology and culture”, a think-tank researcher here said.
