North Korea blames Seoul for canned talks

By Chung Min-uck

North Korea blamed the cancelation of high-level talks, scheduled for Wednesday, on South Korea.

“From the very beginning, the South suggested a ministerial meeting and promised to designate the unification minister as its chief negotiator for the talks, but lowered the rank at the last minute,” a spokesman for the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) said in statement. “We will never accept such a provocative move by the South that led to the breakdown of the talks… the South side should take full responsibility for the damage the incident will incur on inter-Korean relations.”

The statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency said that the North had “nothing to expect from talks between the authorities of the North and South,” indicating that the reclusive country will not seek dialogue anytime soon.

The meeting, which would have marked the first high-level government-to-government dialogue since 2007, was called off on Tuesday because Pyongyang was upset after Seoul named Vice Unification Minister Kim Nam-shik as its chief negotiator.

Seoul withdrew its initial proposal of Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae after knowing Pyongyang wasn’t willing to send Kim Yang-gon, head of the United Front Department in the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, as its chief negotiator, in the preliminary working-level meeting held Sunday.

Pyongyang named Kang Ji-yong, a director at the CPRK, a position much lower in rank than Ryoo, to head the North’s delegation.

Seoul on Thursday added that the government is keeping its channel for dialogue open and hopes the North will accept government-to-government discussions in a sincere manner.

Inter-Korean relations have been marred in recent months since U.N. sanctions were strengthened following North Korea’s third nuclear test in February

Experts say tensions will persist but say it will not get worse due to the firm commitment to press North Korea to denuclearize by the United States and China, who hold the key to security issues surrounding the Korean Peninsula.

Seoul is scheduled to hold a summit with Beijing later this month where joint measures on Pyongyang’s provocative actions will be discussed.