Rare talks between North and South Korea fizzled yesterday with the rivals unable to even agree on a venue for the meeting, which had already been clouded by Pyongyang’s threat to restart its nuclear arms plant.
The problems with the talks could add to growing frustration among regional powers with North Korea, which defied South Korea, Japan and the US earlier this month to launch a rocket in what was widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test.
North Korea hurriedly requested the meeting last week over a joint industrial park located just north of the countries’ heavily armed border. The venture was once hailed as a model of economic cooperation, but has now increasingly been the focus of mounting tension.
The South Korean delegation crossed into the Kaesong Industrial Park yesterday, but failed to have formal talks because of differences over the venue and format, the South’s Unification Ministry said.
“If the discussions do not reach a conclusion, the two sides could meet again on Wednesday,” a ministry official said.
Seoul is trying to win the release of a South Korean worker held for nearly a month at Kaesong by the North on suspicion of criticizing North Korea’s communist system.
Pyonyang, angered by the decision of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak after he took office a year ago to cut a steady flow of aid to the North, has disrupted work at the Kaesong Industrial Park at times to put pressure on Seoul to drop its hard line.
North Korea has all but suspended dialogue with Lee’s government and dubbed him a traitor to the Korean nation for tying aid, which has helped prop up the North’s wobbly economy, to progress Pyongyang makes in giving up nuclear arms.
But the North may now be even more dependent on the money generated at Kaesong because the UN has called for tightened sanctions on Pyongyang after its defiant rocket launch earlier this month.
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