ROK, DPRK agree to further talks

Vice-minister-level meeting to be Dec 11

The Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea agreed to hold talks at the vice-minister level next month, after a meeting on Thursday aimed at further easing tensions following the end to an armed standoff in August.

The meeting of officials at the border truce village of Panmunjom came after the two sides signed an agreement in which Pyongyang expressed regret over landmine blasts near the border that wounded two ROK soldiers.

Officials agreed to vice-minister-level talks on Dec 11 at the industrial park in the DPRK city of Kaesong, just a few kilometers on the northern side of the border run jointly by the two sides, a news statement said.

The talks are a fresh attempt at dialogue between the countries, which have all but cut off ties since 2010, when an ROK navy ship was destroyed by a torpedo that Seoul said was fired from a DPRK submarine. Pyongyang denies any role.

The DPRK also bombed an ROK island later that year, blaming Seoul for provoking it by firing into its territorial waters during a military exercise.

"The agenda will be issues that will improve relations" between the ROK and the DPRK, the statement said.

As part of the August agreement, the sides held reunions last month of families separated during the 1950-53 Korean War. The nations are technically still at war because the conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

If the dialogue makes progress, the DPRK is expected to seek the resumption of cross-border tours from the ROK to its Mount Kumgang resort, which were suspended in 2008.

Seoul in turn is expected to try to get Pyongyang to agree to hold family reunions on a regular basis, a top humanitarian priority for the ROK, where there are more than 60,000 mostly elderly people who are looking for relatives in the DPRK.

(China Daily 11/28/2015 page8)