Seoul, South Korea – The two Koreas concluded their first face-to-face talks in 10 months today without making any progress on the impasse over the North’s nuclear program, although they did agree to hold Cabinet-level talks next month at which the issue likely will be revisited.
The agreement came hours after word emerged of a secret meeting last week between U.S. and North Korean officials.
The focus of both efforts was to get Pyongyang to rejoin six-nation talks on getting it to abandon its nuclear program, but the reclusive communist country – which regularly uses brinksmanship to wring aid from the West – clearly resisted any public commitment.
The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said American officials met with North Korean officials in New York last week.
“This channel is used to convey messages about U.S. policy, not to negotiate,” an embassy official said on condition of anonymity.
The meeting was first reported in The Boston Globe today.
A statement issued today at the conclusion of the two-day meeting between the Koreas said both nations agreed to work for peace on the Korean Peninsula. It said a follow-up Cabinet-level meeting would be held June 21-24 in Seoul, and South Korea would begin providing 200,000 tons of fertilizer to the North starting Saturday.
“We have reached these good results because North and South Korea have pooled their wisdom and will,” said Kim Man Gil, head of North Korea’s delegation.
The scheduled Cabinet-level meeting was a minor victory for South Korea, which had proposed it, and the nuclear issue undoubtedly will be on the agenda then.
“We tried to include the North Korean nuclear issue, the largest point of contention, in the joint statement,” Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo, who headed the South Korean delegation, told reporters.
“It is somewhat insufficient, but by stating that South and North Korea would exert joint efforts for the peace of the Korean Peninsula, the South and the North have expressed our active will to solve the North Korean nuclear issue.”
Seoul will send a delegation to Pyongyang in June for the fifth anniversary of a historic summit between the two rivals. South Korean media said Unification Minister Chung Dong-young was expected to lead the delegation, and there was a possibility he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
“For this event to take place in an atmosphere of reconciliation and cooperation, both sides agreed to actively cooperate and … hold working-level talks,” the statement said.
Chung said no decision have been finalized on whether he would go.
Seoul has provided fertilizer to the impoverished North in recent years to help alleviate widespread famine. It said the shipments would start almost immediately – out of “humanitarian and brotherly love position” – as Pyongyang had requested, in time for the spring planting season. The North earlier this year asked for 500,000 tons.
Talks between the two Koreas broke off in July after mass defections to South Korea that the North labeled kidnappings.
South Korea has found itself walking a tightrope during the talks in the North border town of Kaesong, trying to appease domestic pressure for some improvement in relations while international allies – including Washington – pressed for action on the nuclear issue.
“For the peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue, we are at a time to focus our diplomatic efforts for the resumption of the six-party talks,” Chung said.
The Bush administration earlier this month offered a couple of carrots to the North – direct talks and recognition of its sovereignty – in a bid to derail its nuclear weapons program.
The communist state declared Feb. 10 that it has nuclear weapons and would indefinitely boycott the six-nation disarmament talks – involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia – until the United States dropped its “hostile” policy toward it.
Washington has said repeatedly it has no intention of invading the North.
The North’s nuclear claim has not been verified, but U.S.
intelligence and other estimates say North Korea has as many as six atomic weapons.
The Globe reported that Friday’s meeting with the North was attended by Joseph DiTrani, the U.S. special envoy to the six-nation nuclear talks, and Jim Foster, the head of the State Department’s Office of Korean Affairs.
Japan’s Asahi newspaper reported that senior U.S. State Department officials went to North Korea’s U.N. office with assurances that Washington recognizes North Korea as a sovereign nation under the leadership of Kim, and the Bush administration does not intend to attack it.
Kyodo News agency, citing anonymous sources, reported that North Korea responded that it would have a response to the discussions in two weeks.
