No response from North Korea as proposed talks loom

SEOUL (AFP) – North Korea has not responded to South Korea’s offer to hold military talks Friday, Seoul said, dimming prospects of any ease in tensions after Pyongyang tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile.

“There has been no response yet,’’ defense ministry spokesman Moon Sang-Gyun told journalists, adding that preparations were still underway in case the proposed meeting goes ahead.

Seoul’s defense ministry on Monday offered rare talks with the North at the Panmunjom truce village on the heavily militarized inter-Korean border.

Separately Monday, the Red Cross in Seoul also proposed a meeting August 1 at the same venue to discuss reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

The twin proposals are the first concrete steps towards rapprochement with the North since South Korea in May elected the President Moon Jae-In, who favors greater engagement with Pyongyang.

If the government meeting goes ahead, it will mark the first official inter-Korea talks since December, 2015. Moon’s conservative predecessor Park Geun-Hye had refused to engage in substantive dialogue with Pyongyang unless it made a firm commitment to denuclearization.

Park was engulfed in a massive corruption scandal that resulted in her impeachment and subsequent ouster from office in March.

“There is no deadline,’’ by which Pyongyang has to respond, a South Korea unification ministry official told Yonhap news agency.

The South’s Red Cross earlier said it hoped for “a positive response’’ from its counterpart in the North in hopes of holding family reunions in early October. If realized, they would be the first for two years.