Two Koreas struggle to draft statement
By Lee Joo-hee
The two Koreas made last-ditch efforts yesterday to decide on what to put in a joint statement at the end of the ministerial meetings being held amid lackluster progress in multilateral nuclear talks.
The negotiation continued into the night with the exchange of draft statements produced by each side.
Those efforts were also bogged down by North Korea's protest against the South's latest decision to withhold a shipment of rice until North Korea follows through with a nuclear deal reached earlier this year.
"(North Korea's chief delegate) Kwon Ho-ung lodged a protest against the delay in the rice provision at the chief delegates' meeting this afternoon," said Ko Kyung-bin, spokesman for the South Korean delegation.
The South, in response, said the rice will be delivered as promised but that it was "difficult under the circumstances," in reference to the delay in the implementation of the Feb. 13 agreement.
It seemed unlikely that the two Koreas will manage to hammer out any substantial agreement at the talks, which have overshadowed by North Korea's delay in the first-step denuclearization process.
South Korea decided to suspend its scheduled rice aid to its impoverished neighbor ahead of the talks in light of escalating criticism stemming form the North's failure to follow through on the agreed upon terms within the Feb. 13 agreement.
The dispute over the rice provision prevented the two Koreas from tackling other topics such as how to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula, according to sources.
The South Korean side has pushed to include in the statement an agreement to partially open the cross-border railways and to jointly seek ways to solve the problem of repatriating South Koreans abducted by the North after the Korean War (1950-1953).
The North, on the other hand, continues to reiterate propaganda-like slogans, such as highlighting "the union of the Korean people" and "warding off outside forces," and is pushing for a cancellation of join military drills by South Korea and the United States.
The ministerial talks are slated to end this afternoon.
North Korea on Wednesday night notified the South of its wish to cancel the afternoon schedule of sight-seeing in Seoul, according to the Unification Ministry. Such a cancellation, however, is not unprecedented in past ministerial talks, the ministry said.
During the talks, the South also urged the North to immediately act upon the Feb. 13 agreement that commits North Korea to shutting down its main nuclear facilities in exchange for energy aid.
The North said it is not them but the United States that is delaying the implementation of the agreement, according to Ko Gyoung-bin, spokesman for the South Korean negotiators.
The United States, North Korea and China are currently seeking a way to transfer North Korea's $25 million through a third bank from Banco Delta Asia, a defunct-bank that is now blacklisted by Washington for money-laundering.
In related news, former Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, who is currently a standing chairman of the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, advised against linking the nuclear standoff with inter-Korean relations.
"It is not a wise decision to connect the improvement of inter-Korean relations, which brings immediate ripple effects, with North Korea's nuclear problem, which requires long-term and multi-national cooperation to solve," Jeong said at a private forum in Seoul.
He criticized the latest decision by the Seoul government to withhold rice aid on grounds of a delay in the BDA issue, calling it "inappropriate."
The South Korean government is yet to formalize a system to balance inter-Korean exchanges with the six-party talks, and is struggling to keep the two independent from one another.
While reaffirming that its aid to the North is separate from the nuclear issue, it had halted its rice and fertilizer provision upon North Korea's missile test last year and resumed it after the six-party talks reached a breakthrough agreement in February.
