NYT - In Rare Talks, the 2 Koreas Agree to Talk Again Next Month

[maddezmom]

By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: May 20, 2005

TOKYO, May 19 - Four days of talks between North and South Korea ended Thursday with the North resisting pressure to resume negotiations over its nuclear program, but agreeing to cabinet-level meetings with the South next month.

The White House also confirmed Thursday that American and North Korean officials met late last week in New York, the first such meeting in six months.

The inter-Korean talks wound up with South Korea agreeing to ship 200,000 tons of fertilizer to the North as aid but failing to get North Korea to agree to any conciliatory message about the nuclear crisis. A joint statement mentioned instead that the two Koreas would "cooperate for the peace on the Korean Peninsula."

"We tried to include the North Korean nuclear issue, the largest point of contention, in the joint statement," Rhee Bong Jo, the vice minister of unification, who headed the South Korean delegation, told reporters in Seoul. "It is somewhat insufficient, but by stating that South and North Korea would exert joint efforts for the peace of the Korean Peninsula, the South and the North have expressed our active will to solve the North Korean nuclear issue."

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more:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20korea.html