Seoul (AFP) - The rival
Koreas wrapped up a second round of high-level talks on Friday aimed at
securing a planned reunion for divided families despite the North's
objection to overlapping South Korea-US military drills.
A first round was held at Panmunjom on Wednesday and marked the highest level North-South talks for seven years.The
South's Unification Ministry confirmed the meeting in the border truce
village of Panmunjom had ended after two relatively short sessions, but
gave no immediate details of the outcome.
South Korea wanted the
North to guarantee that a planned reunion for relatives divided by the
1950-53 Korean War would take place as scheduled at the North's Mount
Kumgang resort from February 20-25.
North Korea had insisted
that the South must postpone the February 24 start of its annual
military drills with the United States until after the reunion is over.
The talks were the first
substantive follow-up to statements by the leaders of both countries --
South Korean President Park Geun-Hye and the North's Kim Jong-Un --
professing a desire for improved inter-Korean ties.
An eventual compromise
on the overlapping family reunions and military drills could signal a
willingness to explore other, far more contentious issues, according to
Robert Carlin, a former US State Department official and contributor to
the closely-followed North Korea-dedicated website, 38 North.
"When they want to be -—
which unfortunately is not all that often -— both sides are capable of
imaginative solutions to what, at first, look to be intractable
problems," Carlin said in post on the website.
There had already been
signs of a shift in position at Wednesday's first round, with the
North's demand that the annual South Korea-US exercises be postponed.
North Korea routinely
condemns the drills as provocative rehearsals for war, and its previous
position has always been to demand their permanent cancellation.
By calling for this
year's exercises to be delayed, Pyongyang seemed to indicate that it
could live with them actually going ahead -- if Seoul and Washington
conceded on the scheduling.
"Depending on whether
both sides are looking for progress or want to dig in their heels, this
would seem to have opened the way to explore various compromises,"
Carlin said.
Seoul's initial response
has been an unequivocal rejection of any change to the military drills,
on the principle that there can be no linkage between them and an
essentially humanitarian issue like the family reunions.
That position was echoed
on Thursday by visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry, who urged
Pyongyang to act with "human decency" and not try to use "one (issue) as
an excuse to somehow condition the other".
Kerry left for China on
Friday morning following his brief stop in Seoul, where he discussed
efforts to curb North Korea's nuclear weapons programme with Park and
other officials.
While welcoming the
North-South talks in Panmunjom, Kerry stressed that Washington was not
ready to accede to Pyongyang's demand that it get involved in direct
negotiations.
"We've been through that
exercise previously, we want to know that this is real," he said,
adding North Korea had to take "meaningful action" towards
denuclearisation before a dialogue could begin.
"The US will not accept talks for the sake of talks," he said.
North Korea and its main
ally China have both urged a resumption of stalled six-party
negotiations on the North's nuclear programme, but South Korea and the
US have resisted.
During his visit to China, Kerry indicated that he would push Beijing to do more to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
"China has a unique and
critical role it can play... and no country has a greater potential to
influence North Korea," he said, praising moves by Beijing last year to
help reduce tensions after Pyongyang carried out its third nuclear test.
An analysis of new
satellite images posted on the 38 North website Friday showed stepped up
excavation activity at the North's main nuclear test site, although
there were no signs that any further test was imminent.
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