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.