- Title: CHINA: NORTH KOREA BEGIN PEACE TALKS WITH SOUTH KOREA
- Date: 22nd June 1999
- Summary: BEIJING, CHINA (JUNE 22, 1999) (REUTERS) 1. SLV EXTERIOR OF KEMPINSKI HOTEL, VENUE OF FIRST GOVERNMENTAL TALKS IN MORE THAN A YEAR BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA/SCU HOTEL SIGN ON WALL (2 SHOTS) 0.10 2. SLV ARRIVAL OF NORTH KOREAN DELEGATION, LED BY VICE MINISTER PARK YONG-SU GETTING OUT OF CAR (2 SHOTS) 0.23 3. MV NORTH KOREAN DELEGATION WALK
- Embargoed: 7th July 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BEIJING, CHINA
- Country: China
- Reuters ID: LVA5Y4GVLJS62V4MKDZFFN9JEKGW
- Story Text: North Korea finally began talks with South Korea on
Tuesday morning, after twice delaying starts to peace talks
designed to ease strained relations between the two countries.
North and South Korea on Tuesday (June 22) opened the
first governmental talks in more than a year.
South Korean Vice Minister for Reunification Yang
Yong-shik met his North Korean counterpart Park Yong-su on
Tuesday morning.
The North Korean delegation, which arrived in Beijing by
train from their famine-stricken country, had delayed the
talks twice on Monday.
The North Koreans said they were upset by Seoul's
failure to deliver the final 22,000 tonnes of the 100,000
tonnes of fertilizer it promised to help the North grow food.
A spokesman for South Korea's Unification Ministry said
the a South Korean ship carrying 22,000 tonnes of fertiliser
arrived at the North Korean port of Nampo early on Tuesday
after delays linked to bad weather.
There had been doubts over the first inter-Korean
governmental talks in 14 months as Pyongyang vowed retaliation
for a naval clash in the Yellow Sea last Tuesday.
South Korea did not rule out discussion of the disputed
sea boundary issue between the two Koreas after the Yellow Sea
skirmish in which the South said it sank a North Korean
gunboat and heavily damaged several others.
The talks were expected to focus on food aid for the
North, where hundreds of thousands of people are believed to
have died, and the reunion of tens of thousands of families
separated in the North and South.
Bilateral talks were halted in April last year after
Seoul insisted it would offer aid to North Korea only if
Pyongyang committed itself to allow reunions of families
separated after the 1950-53 Korean War.
The two Koreas technically remain at war because the
Korean War ended in an armed truce rather than a peace agreement.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None