South Korea extends deadline for talks with the North
By
Ben McGrath
24 July 2017
North Korea has yet to respond to South Korea’s offer of military talks that the latter had proposed for last Friday. Seoul urged Pyongyang to accept the proposal, keeping the deadline open for a response until this Thursday, the anniversary of the armistice agreement between the two sides that ended the Korean War in 1953.
Pyongyang published an article in Rodong Sinmun last Thursday criticizing Seoul. “Ditching confrontation and hostility is a precondition for opening the door for the two Koreas’ reconciliation and unity,” the article stated, but it did not outright reject the talks. On Friday, after it became clear Pyongyang would not respond, South Korea’s Defense Ministry stated that it “once again calls on the North to respond positively to our offer as soon as possible.”
Seoul has also reiterated that it will not backtrack from the international sanctions that have been slapped on North Korea in response to its nuclear and missile tests. Rather it is attempting to use the economic pressure generated by the sanctions to bring the Kim Jong-un regime to the negotiating table.
The South Korean government announced the offer of military talks at Panmunjom, along the border between the North and South, last Monday to ease border tensions between the two sides. It also proposed holding separate talks August 1 on conducting family reunions for those split by the US division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945 and by the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The US responded coldly. Since Trump’s inauguration, his administration has systematically ramped up the threat of war against North Korea.
“Conditions [for talks] that would have to be met are clearly far away from where we are now,” said…