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Korean Defense Ministers Hold First Talks Since 1945
The defense ministers of North and South Korea held their first meeting since the 1945 division of the Korean peninsula on Monday with a clear hope that the two sides could work towards easing military tension.
The first session between the South's Defence Minister Cho Sung-Tae and the North's Armed Forces Minister Vice Marshall Kim Il-Chol lasted 98 minutes in a top class hotel on the resort island of Cheju.
Neither side commented afterwards and no more official contacts were scheduled until Tuesday but unofficial dialogue was to continue throughout the day.
The talks are the most important contacts since the historic June summit between the leaders of the two Koreas. North Korea has sought to limit the agenda, but the South wants to see progress toward formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended only with an armistice, not a full peace treaty.
The first session went ahead in what officials called a "friendly atmosphere."
Cho and the North's five star general, in full uniform, sat opposite each other, each flanked by four other delegates.
Kim on Sunday became the first chief of North Korea's 1.2 million-strong armed forces to cross the border into the South since the war.
The smiling ministers Monday shook hands before cameras and briefly exchanged banter about the weather and the front pages of South Korean newspapers which were dominated by the military talks.
"Did you see the morning papers?" Cho asked. "Yes, I did this morning. I felt the heavy weight of our responsiblity to meet the high expectation," the North Korean general replied.
North Korea has said it wanted to limit the talks agenda to military cooperation to clear landmines along a railway track and a four-lane road being built through the inter-Korean border.
The two have agreed to reconnect the severed railway between Seoul and the North Korean city of Shinuiju, near the border with China, and to build a road between Seoul and the North's southern city of Kaesong.
But the South said it would also repeat proposals for measures to build military confidence at the talks.
South Korea wants a military hotline and other confidence-building measures, including the notification of military drills and sending observers to each other's military training exercises.
It will also push for routine defense ministers' talks.
South Korean officials say they hope that by the end of the talks a joint statement on tension reduction and the guarantee of peace on the Korean Peninsula be issued.
Yonhap news agency quoted unidentified sources as saying the two sides have a tacit agreement to form a working group to handle contingencies for the severed railway and new rail road. (Source: chinadaily.com.cn)
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