Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


             First Inter-Korean Talks in Two Years Appears Imminent

   by Steve Herman

   Working-level talks between the two Koreas will apparently take place
   Sunday. This would mark a significant thawing of the chill on the
   peninsula where tension has been high in recent months amid Pyongyang's
   war rhetoric and its nuclear and missile tests.
   North Korea telephoned the South Friday afternoon on a Red Cross
   circuit running across the truce village of Panmunjom.
   On the southern end of the line, officials told their counterparts in
   the north that they would agree to Pyongyang's offer of working-level
   talks Sunday. But the South wants the discussion to take place at
   Panmunjom, not north of the border in Kaesong as the North proposed.
   The border hotline, used to discuss humanitarian issues, was severed
   three months ago by the North.
   Pyongyang made a surprise offer Thursday to hold wide-ranging talks
   with the South. It said Seoul could decide the venue and date.
   South Korean officials quickly proposed ministerial-level talks in
   Seoul for June 12.
   There have been no working level inter-Korean talks since February of
   2011. Talks involving ministers have not been held in more than five
   years.
   The North however termed it premature to hold high-level talks, saying
   working discussions would be needed initially "in the light of the
   prevailing situation in which relations have been suspended for many
   years and mistrust has reached the extreme."
   A radio announcer in Pyongyang, quoting a spokesman for the Committee
   for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, suggests a
   lower-level meeting be held Sunday (June 9) in the North at Kaesong.
   Officials in Seoul say the talks would discuss how to re-open and
   prevent another closure of the joint factory zone at Kaesong as well as
   the other shuttered inter-Korean business project - the resort complex
   on Mt. Keumgang.
   The tension on the Korean peninsula is to be a key agenda item in the
   talks Friday between between visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and
   his host, President Barack Obama, in the U.S. state of California.
   South Korea's president, Park Geun-hye, is also scheduled to meet the
   Chinese leader when she travels to Beijing on June 27.
   Park on Friday addressing 140 top military commanders asserted that
   Pyongyang's proposal this week to hold official talks is a result of
   Seoul standing firm in the face of threats and provocations from the
   North.
   The two Koreas have technically remained at war since the early 1950's
   and there are no diplomatic relations between the North and South.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/first-inter-korean-talks-in-two-years
   -appears-imminent/1677022.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/first-inter-korean-talks-in-two-years-appears-imminent/1677022.html