Two Koreas start talks

ATMOSPHERE WARM: ‘PEACE OLYMPICS’ IN THE SOUTH FIRST ON AGENDA

‘Let’s present the people with a precious new year’s gift,’ says the North’s Ri.

North and South Korean officials exchanged warm greetings amid light flakes of snow on the world’s last Cold War frontier yesterday, in contrast with previous frosty gatherings.

The delegates shook hands and even cracked a joke as they posed for photographers at the border truce village of Panmunjom, before starting talks focused on the North’s participation at next month’s Winter Olympics in the South.

“We have to curry favour with them,” the North’s chief delegate Ri Son-Gwon quipped as he shook hands with his Southern counterpart Cho Myoung-Gyon for photographers. The pair broke the ice with small talk about meteorological conditions.

“Despite the cold weather, the people’s burning desire to see inter-Korean dialogue and rapprochement are like streams flowing beneath the ice,” Ri poetically said.

Ri, the head of the North’s committee for the peaceful reunification of Korea, donned civilian clothes for the meeting and a lapel badge depicting the North’s founding father Kim Il-Sung and his son and successor Kim Jong-Il. Ri is said to be close to Kim YongChul, a top North Korean military official and former director of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the North’s spy agency, who is blacklisted by South Korea’s unilateral sanctions.

In the past Ri has worn military uniform for talks. He angrily stormed out of one meeting minutes after it began, denying any role by his country in the 2010

sinking of a South Korean warship with the loss of 46 lives.

But yesterday he suggested the talks be fully opened to the media, “in light of the great expectations and huge interest from here and abroad in these talks”. Cho

Myoung-Gyon, the leader of the Seoul’s delegation, demurred.

The two five-strong delegations sat opposite each other at a long table in the Peace House, the talks venue on the southern side of the Demilitarised Zone that splits the

peninsula.

“North Korea is exuding a lot of confidence,” said Koo Kab-Woo, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “I can’t say exactly where that confidence stems from.” –

Picture: AFP RAPPROCHEMENT. South Korea Unification Minister Cho Myung-Gyun, left, shakes hands with North Korean chief delegate Ri Son-Gwon before their meeting in the Demilitarised Zone.