WORLD / Asia-Pacific
S.Korea to talk with DPRK on peace
(AP)
Updated: 2007-07-19 13:33
SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea said Thursday it had proposed another
round of high-level talks with DPRK and indicated it hoped to discuss
formally ending decades of hostility on the divided peninsula with a
peace treaty.
South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Chun Yung-woo speaks to the media
in Beijing July 19, 2007. [Reuters]
"Now is the time to specifically discuss the issue of peace," Vice
Unification Minister Shin Eon-sang told reporters at a regular press
briefing, adding that the two sides need to "upgrade their relations."
Washington has also indicated it was prepared to begin negotiations with
Pyongyang sometime this year on a peace treaty to replace the cease-fire
that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The US fought with South Korea against North Korea during the Korean War,
a conflict that ended in an armistice not a peace treaty.
However, a peace treaty is unlikely until North Korea completely
dismantles its nuclear program.
The move to bring permanent peace to the peninsula comes amid heightened
optimism that North Korea will fulfill a pledge to end its nuclear
programs.
North Korea has offered to fully declare and disable its nuclear weapons
programs by the end of the year, indicating its willingness to comply
with a February disarmament pledge after shutting down its sole operating
nuclear reactor.
The participants in the six-party talks - the US, the two Koreas, China,
Russia and Japan - were expected to end this week's session later
Thursday after two-day of talks in Beijing on the next steps in
Pyongyang's disarmament.
Shin also said Seoul had made an offer earlier this month to resume
Cabinet-level talks in early August to "consult and resolve" unspecified
inter-Korean issues.
The North has yet to reply to Seoul's proposal, he said.
South and North Korea have held Cabinet-level talks - the highest channel
of dialogue between the two sides - since a landmark summit of their
leaders in 2000. The two sides have alternately hosted the talks.
The two sides ended the last round in early June without any substantial
agreement and failed to set a date for the next one as Seoul refused to
send food aid to North Korea until it started dismantling its nuclear
program.
But South Korea since started to send 400,000 tons of promised rice aid
to North Korea as Pyongyang moved on its promise to close the reactor.
The UN nuclear watchdog confirmed Wednesday that North Korea had
shuttered all five nuclear facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.
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