Seoul, Beijing
Envoys discuss steps ahead of NK-USsummit
Top negotiators on North Korea from South Korea and China met for discussions Thursday, ahead of a high-level meeting between Pyongyang and Washington to discuss the time and place for a second summit between their leaders.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou and Lee Do-hoon, the special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, shared the details of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping that took place in Beijing earlier this month.
The two were likely to have discussed possible multilateral talks on a peace treaty that would include China, which was brought up in the North Korean leader’s New Year address, diplomatic sources in Seoul said.
On a related note, officials of a Seoul and Washington working group held a video conference the same day. They talked about ongoing inter-Korean projects and ways to get the best results while protecting the best interests of the two allies.
The officials reached a broad consensus on the need for equipment to remove landmines in an ongoing project, a foreign ministry official said. A project between the Koreas to modernize roads in the North and eventually connect them with the South is also underway.
The working group agreed on the need to conduct a second round of inspections of the roads in the North, with the necessary equipment, the official said, adding it may request the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) sanctions committee to exempt the needed equipment from sanctions.
Sending the equipment to the North will take time because the U.S. government shutdown is affecting the process.
“The officials also discussed the issue of video reunions between separated family members of the South and North,” he said.
South Korean officials are known to have brought up the issue of its businesspeople, who ran operations at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC), seeking to visit the complex, but the U.S. participants declined to discuss the matter, citing that the video conferences do not address new agenda items.
The working group was launched in November for closer consultations on inter-Korean affairs and the North’s denuclearization. Video conference meetings are held in between to check on the follow-up on existing issues.
The North has been calling for an early resumption of operations at the GIC, which was closed in February 2016 following the North’s missile and nuclear tests.
The government has a positive stance on the matter, while acknowledging it should proceed alongside the level of progress in denuclearization. It wants to allow South Korean businesspeople to visit the site to check their production facilities, as a means to protect their property rights.