NGO reps set for rare meeting with N. Korea

By Kim Young-jin

Representatives from South Korean civic groups will travel to North Korea today to meet with counterparts in a rare civilian exchange between the sides, an official said Tuesday.

Seven representatives from the Cheontae Buddhist group and two from the Lighthouse Foundation will travel to the border town of Gaeseong for talks on distribution of humanitarian aid and measures to ensure transparency, the official said on condition of anonymity. They will return later in the day.

The Buddhist group will bring with it 13 million won worth of powdered milk, the official said.

NGOs that mobilize aid to the North have been severely restricted since last May, when the government halted almost all of their activities in the wake of Pyongyang’s sinking of the warship Cheonan.

“We are still prohibiting social and cultural exchanges in accordance with the May 24 measures,” the official said. “But we plan to gradually widen the scope of the humanitarian aid activities.”

The government has recently allowed a small amount of aid to cross the border, but drew the ire of the NGOs by not allowing them to meet with their counterparts.

Efforts to warm ties and return to multilateral denuclearization talks have failed over Pyongyang’s refusal to apologize for the ship sinking and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island eight month later.

Meanwhile, Seoul continued to allow workers to enter the Mt. Geumgang resort in the North despite Pyongyang’s threat a day earlier to shut down a liaison office there as well as communication channels on the east coast. The North had yet to take any action to follow through on the threat.

Officials here seem to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the threat, with some noting that the North’s track record of provocations followed by charm offensives to achieve its policy objectives. They also say Seoul will maintain its policy towards the North while making continuous efforts to bring it back to the negotiating table.

The North has repeatedly expressed a willingness to return to the six-party talks that it walked away from in 2009, but it has adamantly refused to take responsibility for the two provocations.

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