Two Koreas to hold military talks on May 26: official
Two Koreas to hold military talks on May 26: official
Agence France-Presse Seoul/Beijing
North and South Korea will on May 26 hold their first general- level military talks since the war on the peninsula ended five decades ago, defense officials said on Wednesday.
"Today, the North offered to hold the first round of general- level inter-Korean military talks at 10 a.m. (8:00 a.m. in Jakarta) on May 26 in Mount Kumgang. We have no problems in agreeing to this," a defense ministry official told AFP.
Both sides plan to have a border meeting between their liaison officers on Friday to fix details on talks, he added.
Meanwhile, North Korea on Wednesday accused the United States of planning war as envoys from six countries opened delicate working-level talks here aimed at defusing a standoff over the communist regime's nuclear program.
Rodong Sinmun, mouthpiece of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, urged South Korea to join with the North in opposing what it said was a U.S. scheme to unleash military conflict on the peninsula.
"A touch-and-go tension in the true sense of the word is persisting in Korea due to the U.S. imperialists' reckless moves to start a war against (North Korea) under the pretext of the nuclear issue," it said.
"Unavoidable is the confrontation between the Koreans in the north and the south, who are advancing along the road of peace and peaceful reunification, and the U.S., which is working to block it."
At a cabinet-level meeting in Pyongyang last week, the two Koreas agreed to hold the military talks aimed at easing tensions on the divided Korean peninsula but failed to fix the date.
The two Koreas are technically at war since the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended in a fragile armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Despite launching cabinet-level talks for rapprochement in 2000, neither side has maintained a general-level military dialogue.
Specific agenda items have yet to be finalized for the talks, but officials in Seoul have said the initial discussions should tackle military tensions in the rich fishing fields off the western coast.
Although little emerged from the closed-door talks, it appeared that the U.S. and North Korean sides remained far apart on fundamental issues.
According to reports in the Japanese media, Kim Jong-il, North Korea's reclusive dictator, told Chinese leaders during a recent visit to Beijing that he would not give up the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
North Korea has also made clear that even if it were to abandon its attempt to build nuclear bombs -- a program whose existence has not been definitively proven, it would want some kind of reward.
The US government, meanwhile, has insisted that North Korea give up its nuclear program without the promise of any immediate quid pro quo.
"It's in North Korea's best interest to embrace the opportunities provided by the six-party talks," a U.S. embassy official said.
However, South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited reports that the U.S. and Japanese delegates, meeting on Tuesday ahead of the working-level talks, supported a South Korean offer of energy aid to North Korea.