Meeting between Koreas suggests easing tensions

The two Koreas are set to meet today for high-level talks after a seven-month hiatus, paving the way for mending inter-Korean ties that frayed over the communist North’s missile launches and nuclear test.

The resumed Cabinet-level meetings, the highest channel of dialogue between the Koreas, are the first concrete sign of eased tensions on the divided peninsula since Pyongyang’s pledge on February 13 at international arms talks to shut down its main nuclear reactor within 60 days.

The Koreas almost immediately announced they would resume the high-level talks, which last met in July, when South Korea refused to continue aid to North Korea after it test-fired a series of missiles. The countries’ relations had further soured after North Korea’s October nuclear test.

At the talks this week in Pyongyang, the sides are expected to discuss the restoration of South Korea’s humanitarian aid to North Korea, including rice and fertiliser.

South Korea will also seek to resume reunions of families split by the border, which North Korea put on hold last year after aid was suspended.

Another key issue will be whether North Korea allows a test run of trains on rebuilt tracks through the heavily-armed frontier dividing the peninsula.

Plans for that early last year were put off at the last minute because the North Korean military said proper security arrangements had not been made.

The inter-Korean talks also raise the likelihood of a long-delayed second summit between their leaders ahead of this year’s presidential election in South Korea.

President Roh Moo-hyun, a liberal who has been strongly supportive of engagement with North Korea, has seen his popularity plummet due to a perception he is a bungling leader who has failed to improve the economy and isolated the country from key allies like the US

Well ahead of the December 19 election, conservative candidates from the main opposition Grand National Party, which has called for a tougher line against Pyongyang, appear to have an unassailable lead.

This development hasn’t been lost on North Korea, which regularly rails against the GNP, urging South Koreans to keep them out of power.

The rise of the conservative opposition is likely to have played a role in North Korea’s decision to agree to the disarmament-for-aid deal, said Kim Tae-woo, a North Korea expert at the South’s Korea Institute for Defence Analyses.

South Korean liberals also believe that staging another summit with North Korea would be a big enough breakthrough to reverse their fortunes and help keep them in the presidency, Kim added.

The leaders of the two Koreas last met in 2000 in Pyongyang, the start of a historic reconciliation between the sides that remain technically at war since the Korean War ended in a 1953 ceasefire that has never been replaced by a peace treaty.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has yet to fulfil a promise for a return visit to Seoul.