USA TODAY International Edition
South Korea proposes peace talks with North
South Korea on Monday proposed holding bilateral military talks with the North this week aimed at reducing tensions across the border and Red Cross talks on Aug. 1 to discuss resuming reunions of families separated since the Korean War more than 60 years ago.
South Korea wants military talks to begin Friday at a North Korean building in the truce village of Panmunjom, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement picked up by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. Vice Minister Suh Choo- suk said the talks would attempt to end “all acts of hostility” near the Military Demarcation Line that divides the two Koreas.
The talks would be the first dialogue between the military authorities in nearly three years.
South Korea President Moon Jae- in stressed engagement with the North in his election campaign this year. Moon, speaking in Berlin this month, reiterated his position and called for a peace treaty with Pyongyang.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un voiced support for talks last year, saying dialogue could ease tensions in the region. A series of missile tests since then, however, had added stress to Pyongyang’s relations with Seoul as well as other neighbors in the region and the West.
The standoff between the North and the South and their allies grew even more tense July 4 when Pyongyang tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile. The Hwasong- 14’ s estimated range of about 4,163 miles means it could hit targets in Alaska.
Pyongyang’s tests have spurred urgency in development of a missile- defense system being deployed in South Korea. Last week, the U. S. military successfully intercepted a simulated intermediate- range ballistic missile using the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.
The defense system, along with joint military exercises conducted between Seoul and the U. S., have drawn sharp condemnation from Kim. Moon says bilateral talks could ease tensions.
Seoul made a separate proposal on talks that would resume family reunions on the occasion of the Chuseok harvest festival holiday in early October, Yonhap reported. A similar event was held in October 2015, allowing family members to reunite after being separated since the Demarcation Line was drawn in 1953.
North Korea provided no immediate response to the overtures, which came the same day South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung Wha met with the Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U. N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, to discuss dealing with human rights abuses in the reclusive state.
Kang said human rights in North Korea are a “matter of great concern” to the South Korean government under Moon.
Also Monday, the European Union condemned North Korea’s missile tests and said it was considering imposing tougher sanctions. EU foreign ministers issued a statement urging Pyongyang to “comply without delay, fully and unconditionally, with its obligations under all relevant U. N. Security Council resolutions and to refrain from any further provocative action that could increase regional and global tensions.”
British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said the EU should make no concessions to Pyongyang until Kim moves toward denuclearization.
“We remain absolutely determined to try to get the North Koreans to see sense, and ( we) continue to put pressure on the regime in Pyongyang,” Johnson said. He added that the best way to do that is “to put pressure on the Chinese.”