South Korea called yesterday for talks with North Korea on flood control and family reunions, following reports that Pyongyang wants to improve relations after months of hostility.
The South’s proposals reflect efforts to solve “various pending issues,” Seoul’s Unification Ministry said.
Ties have been strained by the North’s nuclear and missile tests this year.
Pyongyang has also been bitterly hostile to Seoul’s conservative government, which scrapped a “sunshine” aid and engagement policy. But it began making peace overtures to Seoul in August.
The South proposed holding talks on Friday at the North’s Mount Kumgang resort to discuss humanitarian issues such as more reunions for families separated since the Korean War, ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.
Seoul also called for separate talks tomorrow on ways to prevent floods in a cross-border river after six people were drowned in the South last month.
The North released millions of tonnes of water from a dam across the Imjin River on Sept. 6, sweeping away the South Koreans camping downstream. The incident stirred anger in the South and threatened to damage newly improving relations.
The North said a sudden surge in the dam’s water level prompted an emergency release. The South’s Defense Minister Kim Tae-young has said there was no evidence of a deliberate “water attack.”
In recent weeks the North has freed five South Korean detainees, eased curbs on the operation of a joint industrial estate, sent envoys for talks with President Lee Myung-bak and authorized a new round of family reunions.
Hundreds of separated relatives held reunions two weeks ago, the first such meetings in two years.
On Saturday the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea met in Beijing and urged the North’s to return soon to the disarmament forum.
“Our government has a firm position that North Korea must come back to six-party talks soon,” Chun said.
But Seoul is ready to deal with Pyongyang by considering “various circumstances” on the Korean Peninsula, he said.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS