The discussions between South Korea’s chief delegate Hwang Boo-Gi and his North Korean counterpart Jon Jong-Su had begun the day before, running over three sessions and late into the night.
Advertisement
South Korean soldiers gesture to vehicles on the road leading to North Korea’s Kaesong joint industrial complex at a military checkpoint in the border city of Paju on August 21, 2015.
Hwang Boogi, left, South Korea’s vice minister of unification and…
The first meeting went on for about 40 minutes.
The two sides failed to reach an agreement on a schedule for the next round of the vice ministerial-level talks, indicating a de-facto failure of the talks.
Previous efforts to establish a regular dialogue have often quickly faltered after an initial meeting – a reflection of the deep mistrust between two countries that have remained technically at war since their conflict six decades ago.
Speaking to reporters at the talks venue, Hwang said the North Korean side had insisted on linking the two issues and making a resolution of the Mount Kumgang question a pre-condition for discussing the reunions.
The North blamed the South on Saturday for rupturing the talks, claiming that Seoul refused to discuss basic inter-Korean issues like the resumption of a long-suspended joint tour program.
North and were set to hold rare, high-level talks today, with each side looking to wrestle concessions from the other on stalled cross-border programmes in which both their leaders have a political stake.
Now the reunions are being held less than once a year and with only a very limited number of participants – despite a huge waiting list of largely elderly South Koreans desperate to see their relatives in the North before they die.
The North wants the South to restart tours to the scenic Mount Kumgang resort, which were stopped by the South in 2008 in response to the shooting of a female tourist by a North Korean guard.
South Korea has placed top priority on resolving the issue of separated families as time is running out for the surviving 66,000 family members in South Korea, most of whom are over 80.
“North Korea also has expectations for this meeting”, an unidentified North Korean official among the North’s delegation was quoted as saying by pool reports.
Advertisement
The dispute over the Mount Kumgang tours, a once-lucrative source of cash for the impoverished North, is one of a series of unresolved issues that continue to sour relations on the peninsula.
