Following Minister of Unification Ryoo Kihl Jae’s call yesterday for inter-Korean ministerial talks to be held on June 12th in Seoul, the two Koreas appear to be moving toward preliminary working-level contacts this Sunday at Panmunjom, the truce village bisecting the DMZ north of Seoul.
Panmunjon emerged as the likely venue for preliminary discussions after North Korea pushed for a lower-level dialogue in order to discuss next Wednesday’s ministerial meeting, and suggested that the dialogue be held just north of the DMZ in Kaesong.
“We appreciate that the south side promptly and positively responded to the proposal made by us for holding talks between the authorities of both sides,” a spokesperson for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland told Chosun Central News Agency in a brief Korean-language statement.
However, the spokesperson also went on to request working-level talks in advance of the ministerial level meeting, citing the “current conditions” in which inter-Korean relations have been “frozen for a number of years and mistrust has reached an extreme degree.”
Therefore, the North requested that the working-level talks take place at Kaesong on Sunday, June 9th, and added that the inter-Korean Red Cross channel would be reopened at 2PM today. They did not cite a precise time for the meeting.
Then, two hours later at around 4:00PM, Seoul used the reopened communications line to ask that the meeting be held in Panmunjom, rather than Kaesong, at 10AM on Sunday. North Korea has yet to issue a public response to the proposal.
