• pub­lished: 10 Jun 2013
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Of­fi­cials from North and South Korea have agreed to hold their first high-lev­el meet­ing since 2007. The agree­ment came after hours of pre­lim­i­nary talks in the truce vil­lage of Pan­munjom aimed at re­build­ing trust be­tween the two sides. The talks will take place in Seoul on Wednes­day and Thurs­day. The an­nounce­ment fol­lows months of ten­sion be­tween the two na­tions, fol­low­ing the North's third nu­cle­ar test in Febru­ary. 'Sep­a­rate state­ments' The talks in Pan­munjom - where the armistice agree­ment end­ing fight­ing in the 1950-53 Ko­re­an War was signed - con­tin­ued into the night. Con­tin­ue read­ing the main story Anal­y­sis Kevin Kim BBC News, Seoul There is a sense of cau­tious op­ti­mism in Seoul now that the two Ko­re­as are talk­ing again. Hope has been rekin­dled that the Kaesong in­dus­tri­al com­plex could re­open after the North pulled its 53,000 work­ers out in protest over mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es in the South. How­ev­er, the out­come of the talks this week is hard to pre­dict. It took a long time to set up the meet­ing and Seoul doesn't want to talk for the sake of talk­ing. It wants to end the vi­cious cir­cle of see­ing the North raise mil­i­tary ten­sions and then en­gage in re­newed di­a­logue only to face fur­ther brinkman­ship - a pat­tern that has been going on for the past two decades. The South is look­ing for as­sur­ances be­fore op­er­a­tions in Kaesong can re­open, so that in the fu­ture it would be hard­er for the North to close the plant for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons. The deal to hold high­er level talks came in the early hours of Mon­day, but the two sides have not yet agreed on the other de­tailed agen­da items. "Both sides is­sued sep­a­rate state­ments on the out­come of dis­cus­sions after fail­ing to nar­row dif­fer­ences over the level of chief del­e­gate and agen­da," South Korea's Uni­fi­ca­tion Min­istry said. Uni­fi­ca­tion Min­is­ter Ryoo Kihl-jae will lead South Korea's del­e­ga­tion to the meet­ing later this week and has asked the North to send the head of the Unit­ed Front De­part­ment of the rul­ing Work­ers' Party, Kim Yang-gon. How­ev­er, it is not yet clear who the North will send to the meet­ing. An un­named of­fi­cial from South Korea's Min­istry of Uni­fi­ca­tion would not con­firm re­ports that de­nu­cle­ari­sa­tion would be dis­cussed at the meet­ing, but said that "all mat­ters that can en­hance peace and sta­bil­i­ty can be dis­cussed at the two-day talks", South Ko­re­an news agen­cy Yon­hap re­port­ed. North Korea's Cen­tral News Agen­cy said the main point of dis­cus­sion would be restor­ing sus­pend­ed com­mer­cial links, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Kaesong joint com­mer­cial zone which was shut down by the North in April as ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed. Other is­sues up for dis­cus­sion are the re­union of sep­a­rat­ed fam­i­lies and their rel­a­tives and the re­sump­tion of tours to North Korea's Mount Kum­gang. South Ko­re­an tours to the North Ko­re­an re­sort ended after a South Ko­re­an tourist was shot and killed by a North Ko­re­an guard in 2008. Rev­enue stream Ties be­tween the two Ko­re­as de­te­ri­o­rat­ed ear­li­er this year in the wake of the North's nu­cle­ar test on 12 Febru­ary. Con­tin­ue read­ing the main story Time­line: Ko­re­an ten­sions 12 Dec: North launch­es a rock­et, claim­ing to have put a satel­lite into orbit 12 Feb: North con­ducts un­der­ground nu­cle­ar test 11 Mar: US-South Korea an­nu­al mil­i­tary drills begin 30 Mar: North says it is en­ter­ing a "state of war" with South 2 Apr: North says it is restart­ing Yong­by­on re­ac­tor 3 Apr: North blocks South work­ers from Kaesong in­dus­tri­al zone, then on 9 Apr pulls its work­ers out 10 Apr: North moves two mid-range Musu­dan mis­siles to its east coast 26 Apr: Seoul an­nounces with­draw­al of all re­main­ing South Ko­re­an work­ers from Kaesong 2 May: North Korea jails US man for 15 years 22 May: North Korea sends envoy to China 6 June: North and South Korea agree to talks on Kaesong In­dus­tri­al Com­plex Q&A;: Kaesong In­dus­tri­al Com­plex Pick­ing apart the blus­ter Py­ongyang with­drew its work­ers from the Kaesong in April, ap­par­ent­ly an­gered by tight­ened UN sanc­tions after the nu­cle­ar test and an­nu­al South Ko­rea-US mil­i­tary drills. The Kaesong com­mer­cial zone, seen as a sym­bol of North-South co-op­er­a­tion, had run suc­cess­ful­ly for more than eight years. The zone was a key source of rev­enue for the North and the biggest con­trib­u­tor to in­ter-Ko­re­an trade. Around 53,000 North Ko­re­an work­ers were em­ployed at the Kaesong fac­to­ry com­plex by more than 120 South Ko­re­an fac­to­ries. Last Thurs­day, the North of­fered talks with the South on the re­sump­tion of op­er­a­tions and said it would re­con­nect a Red Cross hot­line if Seoul - which had been seek­ing such talks - agreed. The new South Ko­re­an lead­er, Pres­i­dent Park Ge­un-hye, has said she wants to build trust after a pe­ri­od of very chilly ties under the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion in Seoul. The in­ter-Ko­re­an talks in Pan­munjom close­ly fol­low a sum­mit in Cal­i­for­nia be­tween US Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping.