Seoul’s Unification Ministry said Friday that it has accepted North Korea’s offer to hold talks at a border village next Thursday.
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“The secretary-general has repeatedly said he is willing to play any constructive role, including traveling to [North Korea], in an effort to work for peace, stability and dialogue on the Korean Peninsula”, the spokesman said. Seoul said it was examining the proposal.
“Our acceptance of the proposal reflects our resolve to conscientiously execute the August 25 agreement”, a ministry official told reporters, referring to the bilateral deal to defuse tensions and improve frosty relations.
The Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry (COI), chaired by retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, for several years has published reports that the North Korea government has committed systematic human right abuses at a scale “without parallel in the contemporary world”, including extermination, enslavement, rape and forced abortions.
There was also a commitment to hold high-level talks at that time.
Pyongyang has attached such preconditions to government-level talks in response to Seoul’s previous similar dialogue offers.
Seoul imposed the punishment on its northern neighbor following the sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010.
Under the terms of the August agreement, Seoul switched off loudspeakers blasting propaganda messages across the border after the North expressed regret over recent mine blasts that maimed two South Korean soldiers. “The South is expected to raise the issue of family reunions”.
Considering that North Korea leaked the timing of not-yet-agreed-upon visit to the North, it can be inferred that North Korea wants Ban to visit as soon as possible, while Ban judged the date proposed by the North as being too soon.
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Ban had been scheduled to visit North Korea in May this year, when Pyongyang invited him to tour the joint North-South Kaesong Industrial Zone, which lies just over the inter-Korean border.
