South and North agree to more working level talks on Kaesong

Posted on : 2013-07-11 12:04 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Seoul accepts Pyongyang’s offer for talks on divided families, rejects offer to talk about Mt. Keumgang tours
 head of the Ministry of Unification’s Inter-Korean Cooperation District Support Directorate (right)
head of the Ministry of Unification’s Inter-Korean Cooperation District Support Directorate (right)

By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter

During the working-level talks on the Kaesong Industrial Complex, North Korea offered to hold further working-level talks in regard to tourism at Mt. Keumgang and reunions of families separated by the division of South and North.

This indicates that North Korea means to counter the South’s requests for an expression of regret for the suspension of work at Kaesong and a pledge to prevent anything similar from happening again. It hopes to do this by improving inter-Korean relations and moving toward dialogue with the US. The South Korean government accepted the proposal of talks for reunions of divided families, but rejected the offer of talks for resuming tours at Mt. Keumgang.

“This afternoon, North Korean liason officers at Panmunjeom Peace Village delivered Pyongyang’s proposal for inter-Korean working-level talks on July 17 about resuming tours to Mt. Keumgang and its proposal for Red Cross working-level talks on July 19 for holding reunions of divided families around Chuseok [Korea’s harvest festival]. They suggested the talks could be held at Mt. Keumgang or at Kaesong,” said Kim Hyung-suk, spokesperson for the Ministry of Unification, during a briefing with reporters on July 10.

Pyongyang was essentially reiterating the requests that it made in a July 6 statement by the spokesperson for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF).

“The South Korean government accepted the proposal for Red Cross talks about the reunions of divided families considering the urgency of resolving the issue and out of pure humanitarian consideration,” Kim said. “However, the government decided not to agree to hold working-level talks for tours to Mt. Keumgang, since the negotiations about Kaesong are still underway.”

In line with this, the government offered a counter proposal to North Korea that the July 17 Red Cross working-level talks for reunions between divided families be held at the House of Peace on the South Korean side of Panmunjeom.

“We came to this decision in consideration of the fact that the working-level talks for Kaesong are still underway, and that the Kaesong Complex is the touchstone for cooperation and exchange between South and North,” Kim said. This made it clear that the South Korean government will be watching North Korea’s attitude toward resolving the issue at Kaesong and will deal with the Mt. Keumgang issue accordingly.

As of 10 pm on July 10, North Korea had not issued a response.

The second round of inter-Korean working level talks for “constructive normalization” of Kaesong that were held on July 10 did not lead to an agreement. The two sides found themselves unable to find the middle ground, with Seoul trying to prevent Pyongyang from unilaterally suspending operations in the complex, and Pyongyang wanting to go ahead and reopen the complex. However, not all hope was lost, as both sides promised to hold a third round of working-level talks on July 15.

The July 10 meeting, which was the first to fully deal with the issue of Kaesong, ended with both sides reasserting their current positions. The South Korean government asked North Korea to issue a statement taking responsibility and indicate its regret for the suspension of operations at Kaesong. It also requested that the North take adequate and verifiable measures to prevent work at the factory from being suspended again.

When a government official was asked to specify these “measures”, the official declined to provide any specifics, noting, “negotiations are underway.” The implication is that, while the South is willing to negotiate on the questions of method and extent, it will insist that the North express regret for shutting down operations and promise not to do so again.

But North Korea gave its own reasons that it had no choice but to suspend operations at Kaesong in April, while requesting instead that Seoul should desist from all actions that undermine chances to reopen Kaesong. It appears that “all actions” refers to reports by South Korean conservative media outlets suggesting that the North wouldn’t dare permanently close the Kaesong Complex because the Pyongyang regime needs the money the complex brings in. The North also linked the fate of the Kaesong complex to the Foal Eagle combined US-ROK military exercises that were held after Pyongyang’s third nuclear test in February.

But the North was not able to make the South Korean delegation change its position with comments of this sort. “When we talked about preventing Kaesong from being shut down again, North Korea gave us an explanation,” said Suh Ho, head of the Ministry of Unification’s Inter-Korean Cooperation District Support Directorate and the leader of the delegation to the meeting. “We pointed out that, if the Kaesong Complex is reopened without some kind of safety mechanism in place, there are various kinds of uncertainty about operations at the facility being brought to a halt again.”

For this reason, the success of the third round of working-level talks, which will take place at Kaesong on July 15, may well depend on whether North Korea, which stopped operations at the complex, will come up with measures that are adequate to placate South Korea, and what level of measures the South Korean government is willing to accept.

Another interesting issue that was debated was the different visions that North and South have for the future of Kaesong. When the South Korean government told North Korea about its plan to “develop Kaesong into a complex that meets international standards,” the North responded by saying that the complex must be developed “according to the June 15 joint declaration [2000].”

On July 10, the North Korean state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the North had been proactive in the talks, even bringing a rough draft of an agreement, but that “South Korea came to the table without any practical proposal for reopening the complex, instead insisting on making unfair claims, trying to shift the responsibility for the shutdown of operations at the complex to the North.”

“North Korea decided to shift into negotiating mode through the strategic agreement made with China during envoy Choe Ryong-hae’s visit there at the end of May,” said Lee Bong-jo, former Vice Minister of Unification on the topic of North Korea’s recent proposals for talks. “Since then, it has been trying to take the lead in dialogue by making proposals on issues about which the South Korean government cannot refuse, such as the divided families and the July 4 North-South joint statement [1972].”

“These movements are all part of a larger push by North Korea to improve relations with the US in order to fully usher in the age of Kim Jong-un,” said Paik Hak-soon, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute.

 

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