After the talks stretched into the evening on Saturday, as they had done on Friday, they ended without any statement from either side.
Advertisement
The talks started a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un said the country had developed a hydrogen bomb – a claim treated with skepticism by US and South Korean intelligence officials.
The South’s Vice Unification Minister Hwang Boo-gi insisted that the two subjects should not be linked as he addressed reporters in Kaesong, just north of the Koreas’ border.
Two days of high-level talks between North & South Korea stopped Saturday with no breakthroughs, South Korean officers stated, leaving mixed signals about reconciliation efforts the rivals have made since stepping away from a military standoff in Aug.The meeting of vice-ministerial officers within the town of Kaesong wasn’t expected to produce any substantial outcomes, still analysts had thought-about the talks an indication in that the rivals have been working to maintain alive an environment of conversation – one thing they’ve typically did not do within the wake of conflict.
South Korea, meanwhile, wanted the North to agree to regular reunions for families separated by the Korean War.
Hwang said he had offered to resume discussions on Monday, but the North Korean delegation “conveyed its decision there was no need to continue talks”.
There was no indication that the two sides had discussed the elephant in the room for any North-South dialogue – Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
South Korea in turn weighed in on the issue of Korean War-separated families, calling for identification of separated families and letter exchanges. The tours were a valuable source of hard currency for the North before Seoul suspended them in 2008, following the shooting death of a South Korean tourist.
Still, any negotiations between the rivals, which are separated by the world’s most heavily armed border, should improve upon the situation in August, when they threatened each other with war over land mine explosions that maimed two South Korean soldiers.
The talks focused on the resumption of cross-border tours as well as reunion gatherings of families separated by war. At present, such reunions take place once a year at most, and only a very limited number of people are permitted to take part, despite the many elderly South Koreans who are eager to see their relatives in the North once more before they die.
The standoff eased after marathon talks and an agreement on efforts to reduce animosity.
Advertisement
“The North would want to achieve some feats on inter-Korean affairs ahead of the ruling party’s congress for next year”, said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University.
