GAESEONG, North Korea ― The two Koreas made no progress in their fourth round of talks to reopen a joint factory zone in Gaeseong on Wednesday.
The North came up with a new draft agreement but did not move from its previous rejection of Seoul’s demand for measures to avoid a future suspension of the industrial park, the Unification Ministry said.
Pyongyang repeated its calls for a swift restart with no preconditions.
They agreed to meet again Monday.
“We explained that the guarantee against a recurrence (of the shutdown) is key to any agreement but the North showed no advance in its position,” Seoul’s chief negotiator Kim Ki-woong told reporters after the meeting in the North Korean border city.
“Also there were still huge differences on institutional assurances for a future-oriented normalization.”
The North presented a draft containing “partial revisions” from the previous one but there were no “big differences,” Kim added. The South did not offer any draft.
The negotiation was led by Kim, director-general of inter-Korean cooperation district support at the ministry, and Park Chol-su, vice director of the North’s General Bureau of the Special Zone Development Guidance.
The mood appeared chilly even before the talks began.
Arriving in the North Korean border city, Kim approached Park for a handshake with a faint smile. But Park offered a blank look and no greeting at all, instantly removing the smile from Kim’s face.
The two chief negotiators, who skipped a usual pre-meeting handshake on Monday, flatly shook hands upon the request of the press.
In their first round of talks on July 6, the two Koreas tentatively agreed to reopen the district “when ready.”
Seoul has been urging its neighbor to accept responsibility for its unilateral entry ban in April and devise measures to secure South Koreans’ easy passage, communications and customs, as well as their safety, investments and assets.
But Pyongyang has called for the operations to be resumed as soon as possible, warning against “all activities impeding its normalization.”
By Shin Hyon-hee & Joint Press Corps (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)
