By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The Oct. 4 joint declaration by the leaders of the two Koreas is expected to offer a good chance for the two militaries to revive hopes of easing tensions across their heavily fortified border dividing the Korean Peninsula over half a century.
Under the landmark agreement, the defense ministers from the two sides are scheduled to hold talks sometime next month in Pyongyang, the second of their kind following 2000.
The first-ever and only defense ministerial talks between South and North Korea was held in September 2000, three months after the historic inter-Korean summit. Follow-up meetings, however, have not been held amid lingering military tensions including North's incursion over the maritime border in the West Sea, Northern Limit Line (NLL).
It is unclear, however, if the defense chiefs from the two Koreas will be able to reach detailed agreements on a range of tension-reducing measures including the NLL issue.
``Opening a second defense ministers' talks is meaningful itself given the long-standing stalemate over military issues between the two Koreas,'' Kim Jin-moo, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA) affiliated with the Ministry of National Defense, told The Korea Times.
``But it remains to be seen if the defense talks can produce substantial results because military issues are too tricky to be resolved in a day,'' he said. ``The government should take a comprehensive and careful approach toward cross-border tension reduction issues, not swayed by an upbeat mood after the summit talks.''
Tensions remains high across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) despite steadily improving inter-Korean relations following the 2000 summit, which laid the groundwork for inter-Korean reconciliation through cross-border business projects.
The two Koreas are technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War end in a truce, not a peace treaty.
Large numbers of troops are stationed along both sides of the border, each side patrolling against potential aggression from the other side. The North has enough artillery on its side of the border to flatten metropolitan Seoul, home to 12 million people, within a few hours.
Among the key agenda for the talks between Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo and his North Korean counterpart Kim Il-chul are a possible redrawing of the NLL; designation of joint fishing areas in the West Sea; plans to disarm part of the Demilitarized Zone; and arms reductions between the two militaries.
Of them, the NLL is the thorniest topic.
Inter-Korean military talks have frequently been ruptured because of North Korea's argument on the maritime sea border. The NLL, drawn by the United Nations Command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, has served as the de facto sea borderline between the two Koreas, but the North has rejected recognizing the line and called for redrawing it.
South Korea maintains a firm position that the issue cannot be a matter of discussion, at least before tensions across the heavily fortified border are reduced, as it is a territorial issue.
The sides are also expected to discuss ways of implementing the 1992 Basic Agreement calling for a broad range of confidence-building measures between the two militaries such as reduction of conventional weapons and peaceful use of the DMZ.