South Korea yesterday weighed its response to North Korea’s surprise proposal to hold the first official talks between the sides since Seoul’s new conservative government took office in February.
The North’s offer of military talks appeared to have caught the South off guard, coming as the frayed ties between the two sides showed no sign of improving. Seoul disclosed the proposal on Friday, a day after it arrived, a possible indication that it was scrambling to study the North’s intentions.
“We’re still having an internal review,” a Defense Ministry official said yesterday. “It’s unlikely to reach a conclusion until early next week.”
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy, declined to give details.
Local media reported that the South was likely to agree to the talks, but was considering proposing a new date for the meeting, possibly Thursday or Friday, instead of on Tuesday, as proposed by the North.
It was Pyongyang’s first official offer for talks since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s administration took office in February with a pledge to get tougher on the North. The North responded by suspending all government-level talks with the South.
It also came amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s decision to abandon a pact to disarm for aid and to begin reassembling its nuclear reprocessing plant in Yongbyon. Earlier this week, the North ordered UN nuclear monitors to leave the country and said it would reinsert nuclear material into a plutonium-producing facility within a week, sparking alarm among its neighbors.
One analyst doubted the military talks, if realized, would result in a positive outcome.
“The North is more likely to use the talks as a vehicle for strong complaint,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University.
The North could raise, among other things, the issue of annual military exercises between the South and the US, which Pyongyang have long condemned as rehearsals for invasion, Kim said.
“They could say, for instance, ‘We’re prepared for anything’ or ‘We will use a strong military means in case of the South’s provocation,”’ Kim said. “The question is how high the level of the North’s rhetoric will be.”
On Friday, South Korea’s foreign minister warned the North’s moves toward restarting its nuclear plant could erase years of progress.
“We are faced with a difficult situation where this [negotiation] is not moving forward and may go back to square one,” Yu Myung-hwan said.
The North stopped disabling the Yongbyon nuclear processing plant last month to protest Washington’s refusal to remove it from a list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
North Korea had agreed last year to begin disabling its nuclear system in exchange for energy aid and other concessions. But a North Korean diplomat confirmed 10 days ago that the regime stopped that process and was working toward restarting the plant.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
REVELRY ON HOLD: Students marched in Belgrade amid New Year’s events, saying that ‘there is nothing to celebrate’ after the train station tragedy killed 15 Thousands of students marched in Belgrade and two other Serbian cities during a New Year’s Eve protest that went into yesterday, demanding accountability over the fatal collapse of a train station roof in November. The incident in the city of Novi Sad occurred on Nov. 1 at a newly renovated train facility, killing 14 people — aged six to 74 — at the scene, while a 15th person died in hospital weeks later. Public outrage over the tragedy has sparked nationwide protests, with many blaming the deaths on corruption and inadequate oversight of construction projects. In Belgrade, university students marched through the capital
RSS