DPRK Postpones Meeting With South Korea

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, April 04, 2002

DPRK Postpones Meeting With South Korea

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The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday called off a scheduled meeting with a top South Korean envoy in Pyongyang on a mission to discuss early resumption of dialogue and ease tensions, officials in Seoul said.

The envoy, Lim Dong-won, was to have held new talks with a secretary of DPRK's Workers Party on the second day of his trip to the North's capital.

A Unification Ministry official said "Lim was to meet Kim Yong-Sun this morning but it was not held. He did not say when the meeting would be held.

The ministry earlier said lower level talks had started in Pyongyang. But officials in Seoul said the atmosphere had been "tough" .

The tough opening of the talks in Pyongyang on Wednesday came as US officials spoke of tentative signs that DPRK was getting ready to reopen dialogue with the United States after more than a year.

Although there has not been formal commitment to reviving talks with the United States, "all the signs are pointing in the right direction", a senior US administration official said in Washington.

Late on Wednesday, the Central News Agency (KCNA) of DPRK quoted an official as saying Pyongyang would re-engage with an international consortium at the heart of a crucial nuclear agreement with the United States.

The DPRK spokesman said it would follow US suggestions and resume talks with the consortium, the Korean Energy Development Organization, or KEDO, that is building two nuclear power reactors in the North.

The offer to talk to KEDO came hours after Lim, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's security adviser, held talks with senior party official of DPRK Kim Yong-sun in Pyongyang, the first public North-South meeting since November.

DPRK media report on Wednesday blamed South Korea and the United States for stalled Korean rapprochement.

The KCNA said North-South reconciliation "is facing a serious crisis due to the moves of the bellicose forces at home and abroad to provoke a war, our side noted, adding that not only

the US but the South side are to blame for this".

"The North side's compliance with the request of special envoy Lim Dong-won for the Pyongyang visit was aimed to sit face to face with him and know about the South side's clear

answer on the will to respect the basic spirit of the declaration."

The declaration referred to was signed in Pyongyang on June 15, 2000, by Kim Dae-jung and DPRK leader Kim Jong-il.

The historic statement calls for a series of exchanges and projects aimed at building trust to end the North-South enmity persisting since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Negotiations between the United States and DPRK stalemated after US President George W. Bush took office last year. Contacts hardened when the US leader in January branded the North part of the "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush remained "ready and willing to have a dialogue with North Korea (and) we continue to await a response from North Korea to our long-standing proposal to meet with them on broader issues of concern".

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