No détente as North Korea show reluctance to talk

CABINET-level talks between North and South Korea will not open as planned, South Korean officials said, explaining that Pyongyang had cut off all contact with Seoul regarding the meeting.

South Korean officials were reluctant to pronounce that the four-day meeting had been officially cancelled or even postponed without receiving confirmation from North Korea.

“We can say that the talks will not be held as scheduled,” a Unification Ministry spokesman said. “We are not sure whether North Korea wants to cancel them or postpone them. So we may know more about that after contacting the North Korean side.”

The ministerial talks were scheduled to run from Monday through Thursday in the North Korean capital, the first cabinet-level meeting between the two sides since South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun took office on February 25.

The talks were to focus on inter-Korean exchanges and the North Korean nuclear crisis that has raised tension on the Korean peninsula for the past six months.

Last month, North Korea called off inter-Korean economic and maritime talks, accusing South Korea of heightening its security alert status and conducting massive war games with the United States.

North Korea has also criticised South Korea’s support for the US-led war in Iraq and Seoul’s decision to launch a probe into allegations that Pyongyang received illicit payments from the South Korean government in return for staging an inter-Korean summit in 2000.

President Roh Moo-Hyun last week urged the North to return to the dialogue table, saying “North Korea must talk with South Korea in an open and sincere manner.”

Roh's ruling party, the Millennium Democratic Party, said it was “extremely regrettable” that North Korea had cut off dialogue after agreeing at the last ministerial talks in January to host a new round in April.

“North Korea's persistent refusal to enter into dialogue is dampening efforts to peacefully resolve the nuclear crisis and to bring about co-prosperity of the (Korean) people,” a party spokesman said in a statement.

“North Korea should not close the doors to the means to build credibility. It should engage in inter-Korean talks with sincerity.”

A Unification Ministry official said that for now channels of official communication between North and South were cut.

“Basically relations between the North and South are frozen,” he said. The previous round of cabinet-level talks was held in Seoul in late January, shortly after North Korea pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The International Atomic Energy Agency referred North Korea to the UN Security Council on February 12 and on Wednesday the Security Council will discuss the crisis.