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North, South Korea Exchange Delegation Lists for Military Talks

Posted on: Monday, 27 February 2006, 09:00 CST

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap

Seoul, 27 February: South and North Korea on Monday [27 February] exchanged their lists of delegates to upcoming high-level military talks, South Korea's Defence Ministry said. The five-member North Korean delegation to be led by Maj-Gen Kim Yong-chol will include Col Ri Hyong-son, Col Oh Myong-chol, Lt-Col Pae Kyong-sam and Lt- Col Pak Ki-yong, it said.

"The two sides exchanged the lists via telephone at the truce village of Panmunjom," Col Moon Sung-mook, chief of the North Korea policy team at the ministry, said. Moon is a member of the South Korean delegation to the talks. The South Korean delegation to be led by Maj-Gen Han Min-gu, chief policy-maker at the ministry, will also include navy Capt Eom Hyeon-seong, navy Capt Kim Hyeong-su and Sim Yong-chang, a division chief at the Unification Ministry.

On Friday, South Korea decided to send Han, a two-star general, to lead the delegation to the talks at the request of North Korea. North Korea earlier proposed to raise the delegate status, saying it will send Maj-Gen Kim Yong-chol to the dialogue on 2-3 March in view of the "importance of the dialogue and the weight of the agenda".

Kim is a well-known negotiator who led North Korean delegations for high-level talks between the two Koreas in the early 1990s. He was also in charge of security protocol affairs ahead of the summit between the leaders of the two Koreas in 2000. The two-day meeting, the first since June 2004, will be held at Tongilgak, a North Korean administrative building inside the truce village of Panmunjom.

Prevention of armed conflict at the border and establishment of a joint fishing area in the disputed West Sea, also known as the Yellow Sea, will be on the top of the agenda, according to the ministry. The western sea border has been disputed since the 1950- 53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The area was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999 and 2002 that resulted in dozens of casualties on both sides. The two Koreas will likely discuss how to guarantee the safe passage of those using cross- border railways and roads at the upcoming talks.

Earlier this month, South Korea presented a draft document regarding the safe passage guarantee to North Korea and it expects to hear Pyongyang's position during the meeting. The safe passage issue is drawing keen attention here, as former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung is hoping to make a visit to the North via an inter-Korean railway in June. The 2000 summit between Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il eased tensions and allowed more exchanges between the two Koreas. But the North has been reluctant to engage in military talks for various reasons, including South Korea's joint military exercises with the United States.

On 3 February, South and North Korea agreed to hold a fresh round of general-level military talks, the third of their kind, at the end of a day of working-level discussions. During the meeting, North Korea insisted on holding the talks at its newly-renovated Tongilgak pavilion instead of at the North's highest peak, Mt Paektu, while also preferring to postpone them until early March.

In June last year, the two Koreas agreed to restart the military talks at Mt Paektu, but the North balked at their implementation, citing a lack of preparation amid the international standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear arms ambitions. So far, general-level officers of the rival Koreas have met twice and agreed on a set of tension- reducing measures such as establishment of a hotline and dismantling of propaganda facilities along the 248-kilometre land border. But the military talks stalled after South Korea airlifted 468 North Korean defectors from a third country in July 2004.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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