The two Koreas agreed to hold vice-minister-level talks at the joint industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Gaeseong on Dec. 11 to discuss bilateral pending issues to improve cross-border relations, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said Friday.
Kim Ki-woong (right), assistant minister of South Korea’s Unification Ministry’s Special Office for Inter-Korean Dialogue, shakes hands with Hwang Chol (left), a senior official of the North’s Committee for Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland before their talks in Tongilgak on the North Korean side of the border village of Panmunjeom on Thursday. Yonhap
The agreement was reached at the bilateral working-level talks that were held at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjeom on Thursday.
Under the comprehensive Aug. 25 deal that brought the two Koreas from the brink of an armed clash following Pyongyang’s landmine attack on Aug. 4, they agreed to hold government talks in Seoul or Pyongyang “at an early date.”
The working-level talks began at around 12:50 p.m. and continued for some 11 hours to reach the agreement to hold the high-level government meeting.
At the meeting, the South Korean side was represented by Kim Ki-woong, assistant minister of the ministry’s Special Office for Inter-Korean Dialogue, while the North’s delegation was led by Hwang Chol, a senior official of the North’s Committee for Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland.
As for the agenda of the vice-minister-level talks, Seoul stressed the need to fundamentally address the issue of families separated since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, while Pyongyang prioritized the issue of resuming the long-stalled tours to Mount Geumgangsan, according to Seoul officials.
The issue of lifting Seoul’s economic sanctions against Pyongyang is also expected to be included in the agenda, observers noted.
By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)
