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Joint Statement to Include Peaceful Resolution on Nuclear Crisis

Joint Statement to Include Peaceful Resolution on Nuclear Crisis

Posted April. 29, 2003 22:03,   

한국어

The two Koreas agreed on the last day of the 10th minister-level talks held in Pyongyang to arrange for a 7th exchange visit by separated families and hold a reunification festival at the time of the third anniversary of the historic June 16 Joint Declaration.

The two sides also agreed to North Korea sending a delegation to the Daegu Universiad set for August 21 this year.

Participants at the meeting also reached a conclusion that the two Koreas hold an inter-Korean economic cooperation committee to discuss a wide range of issues such as railway and road reconstruction and the groundbreaking ceremony of Gaesung Complex.

Negotiators from the two Koreas, however, wrangled over the wording of a joint press statement concerning the North`s nuclear weapons program, although North Korea agreed to include the nuclear issue in the statement.

The talks continued well past the time set for departure of South Korean negotiators. The South Korean delegation initially planned to leave Sunan Airport in Pyongyang at 3:00 p.m. in a chartered Asiana Airlines plane.

Since the South earlier said that the talks could fall through if the two sides failed to issue a joint statement on the North`s nuclear program, the agreement on other issues is likely to be scrapped all together if the two sides fail to draft a joint statement.

Following Pyongyang`s bombshell about its nuclear weapons at the three-way talks in Beijing earlier this month, South Korean negotiators insisted that the statement this time include more specific references to a peaceful resolution of Inter-Korean issues, including the nuclear program, than those issued after the 8th and the 9th ministerial talks held in October 2002 and January 2003 respectively.

But their North counterparts maintained that the statement touched on the peaceful resolution of the nuclear crisis in principle.



Dong-Ki Sung esprit@donga.com