The Seoul government is considering expanding inter-Korean talks to include working-level dialogue on a range of topics depending on the outcome of the high-level meeting scheduled for November.
“If inter-Korean discussions make progress, (high-level talks) cannot discuss all the details so working-level officials on each issue will have to meet,” an anonymous government official was quoted as saying by a local news agency.
Next month’s high-level is the second of its kind since February when Seoul accepted Pyongyang’s suggestion to reopen inter-Korean dialogue.
At the first meeting, the South Korean delegation was headed by Kim Kyou-hyun, vice chief of the National Security Office, and Pyongyang was represented by Won Dong-yon, deputy head of the United Front Department in the North’s ruling Workers’ Party.
The high-level talks were welcomed for representing a direct connection between the two Koreas at the highest level. However, critics have pointed out that the high-level talks are limited in their ability to hammer out the details on issues such as easing military tension, increasing social and cultural exchange, and those regarding families separated by the Korean War.
Some of the larger issues the two Koreas currently face include family reunions proposed by Seoul, and the issue of the so-called May 24 measures that Pyongyang is expected to bring up. The May 24 measures refer to those issued under the previous Lee Myung-bak administration that ban economic exchanges between the two Koreas following Pyongyang’s deadly attack on the South Korea warship Cheonan in 2010. Pyongyang is also expected to bring up reopening tours to Mount Geumgangsan resort that was halted after a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier in 2008.
Aside from the high-level talks, in which Seoul’s part is led by Cheong Wa Dae, Seoul is also said to be considering reopening inter-Korean ministerial talks with South Korea represented by the unification minister.
“I think that since the purpose of (the high-level talks) is to make an opening in the congested inter-Korean relations, so once that is done, the Ministry of Unification will have to take the lead once negotiations begin,” Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said at the parliamentary audit on Wednesday. However, reopening ministerial talks is likely to be a thorny issue as they fell apart last year when the two sides clashed over the level of the chief delegates.
By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)
