6-Day Korean Talks Collapse

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6-Day Korean Talks Collapse

MOUNT GEUMGANG - The latest inter-Korean ministerial dialogue broke down completely on Wednesday. An agreement on a new reunion meeting of separated Korean families was scrubbed, and the delegations parted with no word about future contacts.

North Korea laid the blame for the collapse of the talks on South Korea.

"The talks have ended without results because of the unjust attitude the South brought to the talks," the chief North Korean delegate, Kim Ryong-song, said.

He added, "An environment for the worsening of inter-Korean relations has been created, and the responsibility lies with the South, which denies the spirit of the June 15 Joint Communique." That was the date of last year's summit meeting, hailed at the time as a breakthrough, between the leaders of North and South Korea.

The South Korean government said it would attempt to resume dialogue through various available channels. It will call a National Security Council meeting to discuss future measures toward the North.

The two Koreas differed over just about everything during the six days of talks that began Friday. North Korea opened by demanding an accounting from Seoul for the heightened security alert it ordered after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

The two sides eventually agreed to paper the issue over in a final joint press communique, insiders said, but they were unable to agree on a formula. Where to hold a previously planned meeting on economic cooperation and the timing of the next ministers' dialogue became stumbling blocks.

Twice, the talks were extended for a day in an attempt to narrow differences, but in vain. The southern delegation returned home Wednesday on Hyundai's tourist ship, the Seolbongho.

The one apparent achievement of the meeting - an agreement for another family reunion at Mount Geumgang Dec. 10 - lapsed when the talks did.

"It is regrettable to have to end the talks without resolving the separated families' reunion issue," said Unification Minister Hong Soon-yong, the South Korean chief delegate. "I am concerned that there will follow a cooling period [between the two Koreas], as we have reached no agreement."

Political analysts were glum about the future of inter-Korean reconciliation efforts. After last year's Korean summit, the ministers' dialogue has served as the main channel for discussion and timetable setting on a range of military, social and cultural contacts.

North Korea watchers suggested that the hard-line North Korean military establishment may have been behind the intransigence shown during the talks here. The sensitive issues of relinking the inter-Korean Kyongui railway and opening an overland travel route to Mount Geumgang, which would involve opening parts of the Demilitarized Zone and would require the North's military consent, never made their way to the talks table this week.

The momentum of inter-Korean reconciliation has sputtered since March, when the new U.S. administration expressed skepticism toward the Pyeongyang regime and its leader Kim Jong-il. After six months of lull, the two Koreas resumed dialogue in Seoul in September. But family reunion meetings scheduled then were aborted by North Korea, citing security fears, four days before they were to have begun Oct. 16.



by Lee Young-jong

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