Seoul (AsiaNews) – After almost three months ministerial level meetings between North and South Korea resumed today in a new round of talks. The five-member North Korean delegation landed this morning in Seoul where it was welcomed by a demonstrators protesting Pyongyang’s latest missile test.
Tensions are expected to be high during the scheduled four days of discussions over South Korean humanitarian aid, dismantling the North’s nuclear reactors, and the ‘Macau issue’, i.e. the fate of North Korea’s US$ 25 million fund frozen in a Macau bank.
South Korea's Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung tried to play down concerns of a rift over the delayed shipments of rice and medicine to the North. Instead, he said he was fully confident in the North Korean delegation.
However, the South Korean press has zeroed on the North and accused Pyongyang of using war threats to blackmail its way into getting what it wants. For many the recent missile test in the Sea of Japan has been described as a mafia-style warning.
In reality, Seoul hopes to clearly lay down the conditions needed to resume aid shipment, namely formal re-opening of two cross-border railway lines that was successfully test-run earlier this month, an end to Pyongyang’s nuclear threat and an immediate stop to missile testing.