| Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 14, 2001 |
Korean Talks Break Up as Agreement Unravels |
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Reconciliation talks between DPRK and South Korea ended in failure on Wednesday after a deal on resuming family exchanges next month unraveled during all-night negotiations.
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Reconciliation talks between DPRK and South Korea ended in failure on Wednesday after a deal on resuming family exchanges next month unraveled during all-night negotiations.
"What both sides had neared an agreement on yesterday came to nothing," a South Korean Unification Ministry official said after the deal foundered over an anti-terrorism alert in the South that the North has said is directed against it.
The negotiations at the DPRK resort of Mount Kumgang failed to sew up an agreement to hold a new round of reunions next month for elderly Koreans separated since the early 1950s, as well as further ministerial and economic talks.
On Tuesday, South Korea said the two sides had agreed to reunite 100 Koreans from each side with their relatives across the world's most militarized frontier next month at Mount Kumgang.
But the talks bogged down over the wording of a statement to mask differences on anti-terrorism that could not be overcome.
"The chief delegates had a final meeting," South Korean spokesman Rhee Bong-jo told reporters. "But there was no change in the North's attitude, so we have nothing to tell them any more."
The talks were the latest effort by the Koreas, still technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended without a formal peace treaty, to implement agreements set after a landmark summit in the North's capital Pyongyang in June 2000 but since stalled.
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