The North Korean authorities yesterday publicly expressed the wish that “South and North can work together to achieve fruitful results” at the seventh round of inter-Korean talks, which will be held at the Kaesong Industrial Complex next week. The North requested that the Panmunjom channel remain open after normal hours on the afternoon of the 8th, and then conveyed the message at around 5:40 PM.
North Korea’s decision to speak positively about the upcoming meeting is unusual, and has therefore raised expectations that the talks will lead directly to the normalization of the Kaesong Industrial Complex.
The South Korean government officially accepted the North Korean proposal at around 10:40AM. However, a Seoul official was careful not to overplay the situation, telling reporters later on, “It is too early to predict the result, but it is important to reach a sensible and realistic conclusion.”
Positive feeling doesn’t automatically yield positive results, and recurrence prevention, as well as North Korea’s approach to responsibility for the shutdown, could still hinder progress.
Equally, the government has already begun disbursing payouts to those businesses making claims against economic cooperation insurance policies due to the KIC shutdown. Out of the 109 that have applied for payouts, two were paid a total of 5.5 billion won (US$4.9 million) by Korea Eximbank on the first day of payments.
However, a considerable number of the remaining businesses seem set to defer their insurance payouts for the time being in order to observe the results of next week’s talks.
