S.Korea fails to lead North back to nuclear talks

By Jon Herskovitz

SOGWIPO, South Korea (Reuters) – South Korea failed to
persuade the North it should return to multilateral talks on
ending its nuclear programs but the two sides agreed on Friday
on railway links, family reunions and Red Cross meetings.

In a joint statement issued at the end of the first
senior-level meeting between the two since Pyongyang threatened
to pull out of separate six-party talks on its nuclear weapons
program, Seoul and Pyongyang reiterated existing positions on
the nuclear crisis.

“Both sides agreed to actively cooperate on a peaceful
resolution to the nuclear issue,” the joint statement said.

It did not mention when North Korea would head back to the
table to continue negotiating a deal to scrap its nuclear
weapons programs in exchange for aid, security assurances and
increased diplomatic recognition.

South Korean officials said they had wanted to try to prod
North Korea back to the six-party talks at the meeting on the
South Korean resort island of Cheju that started on Tuesday.

But at the ministerial meeting, North Korea accused the
United States of blocking a quick return to the nuclear talks
by adopting a hostile policy toward it, a South Korean
Unification Ministry official said.

The next round of the nuclear talks among the two Koreas,
China, Japan, Russia and the United States was likely to be
held in January, sources familiar with those discussions have
said, but Pyongyang has threatened to boycott the discussions.

North and South Korean officials agreed to work to register
cultural sites in the ancient Korean capital of Kaesong with
UNESCO as part its world heritage project, the statement said.

They will have test runs of cross-border rail links and
arrange for meetings of their Red Cross societies by February
2006, and pledged to hold more joint military talks soon.

HEART-SHAPED FRUIT AND NUCLEAR DISCORD

They are also working on another round of face-to-face
reunions for families separated by the 1950-1953 Korean War as
well as holding another round of reunions by video
conferencing.

Officials from the two Koreas had taken time away from the
talks to see the sights in Cheju, inspect orchards together and
even share local heart-shaped sweet tangerines.

On the final day, however, the mood grew sour when North
Korean officials said they were ready to leave the conference,
apparently because they did not see South Korea compromising
about areas its citizens can visit in the North.

“We cannot make any progress here. It is time to go home,”
one North Korean official told reporters.

North Korea said Seoul did not allow the South’s citizens
to visit sites such as the tomb of North Korea’s eternal
president and founder, Kim Il-sung.

South Korean officials said it places no restrictions on
travel to the North, but South Korean citizens who visit
politically sensitive places in the North could face punishment
under the South’s still-valid anti-communism laws.

While ties between Seoul and Pyongyang have been mostly
warming in recent months, relations between Pyongyang and
Washington have chilled.

Washington, which accuses North Korea of funding its
nuclear programs partly through money obtained from
counterfeiting, money laundering and the drug trade, has
angered the communist North by freezing a few of its assets and
trying to put the brakes on firms taking part in suspected
illegal trade.

Pyongyang said this month the U.S. crackdown on its
financial assets made it impossible to resume six-party talks
on dismantling its nuclear programs.