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| Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, left, shake hands with his North Korean counterpart Ri Son-gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, before starting inter-Korean high-level talks at the Peace House on the South's side of the border village of Panmunjeom, Monday. Both sides reached a package of agreements to initiate inter-Korean reconciliatory projects. / Joint Press Corps |
A set of crucial agreements reached at high-level talks
By Lee Min-hyung, Joint Press Corps
The two Koreas reached a consensus Monday to begin reconnecting railways and roads sometime between late November and early December, they said in a joint statement on the sidelines of inter-Korean high-level talks.
Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon signed the agreement with his northern counterpart Ri Son-gwon at the Peace House on the South's side of the border village of Panmunjeom.
"The South and North agreed to hold a groundbreaking ceremony to link inter-Korean railways and roads in late November or early December," they said in the statement.
Toward that end, both sides also came to terms to start field inspections to modernize the North's rail network on the west coast later this month. They will start joint inspections of the east coast railway, next month.
The agreement is part of a follow-up to fulfill the Pyongyang Declaration reached by President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a summit last month.
Under the high-level agreement, Seoul and Pyongyang also pledged to enhance humanitarian activities.
They include a plan to hold Red Cross talks in November to discuss inter-Korean family reunions.
To continue easing inter-Korean military tension, they will also hold a generals' military dialogue as soon as possible, according to the joint statement.
"Both sides will discuss the establishment of an inter-Korean military committee to put an end to military hostility in tension-laden areas ― such as the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)," it said.
US-NK dialogue
The high-level talks came at a crucial time when a war of nerves between Washington and Pyongyang is escalating ahead of the second summit between their leaders.
Unlike the rapid reconciliation between the two Koreas, denuclearization negotiations between the North and the U.S. are showing no tangible results.
A sign of hope was apparent for smooth progress in their bilateral talks last week when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made headlines by sharing his strong determination to hold the second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump as soon as possible.
Trump also repeatedly expressed his willingness to have another round of talks with Kim, praising the latter for not staging any nuclear or missile tests after pledging denuclearization earlier this year.
They are closing up (nuclear) sites," Trump said Sunday (local time) in a local media interview. "They have not tested a missile. They have not tested a rocket, and we have a relationship now," he said, expressing trust in Kim.
Even if both sides have tentatively agreed to hold the summit sometime no later than the end of this year, they are edging into a new phase of their denuclearization talks by tiptoeing around each other before holding pre-summit talks.
Starting this month, Washington signaled that it wanted to hold working-level talks with Pyongyang at the earliest possible date. Steve Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, plans to lead a delegation from Washington to possibly meet with his North Korean counterpart Vice Foreign Minister Choi Sun-hee.
Both sides are expected to hold a meeting possibly in Vienna to narrow their differences on their ongoing denuclearization talks.
But with the North declining to confirm the schedule for the working-level talks to date, both sides are showing signs of engaging in a political tug-of-war ahead of the summit.
In recent months, Washington and Pyongyang have faced a deadlock in their talks, failing to fine-tune their differences on the method and timetable for the denuclearization of the North.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent visit to Pyongyang, however, raised hopes for Washington and Pyongyang to restart their dialogue in a constructive way.
Despite the ongoing war of nerves, North Korea will soon arrange a schedule for dialogue with the U.S. regarding the working-level talks, as the regime hopes to open its economy to the world by engaging more with international society, according to analysts.
President Moon also said Kim showed his firm willingness to scrap his nuclear weapons and join hands with the South and other countries for the North's economic growth.
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