Seoul 'seeks secret talks with DPRK'

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-23 07:46

The Republic of Korea's (ROK) media reported yesterday that Seoul is seeking secret contacts with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to defuse escalating tensions on the peninsula. But officials in the ROK denied they were pursuing such talks.

The Yonhap news agency said the two sides have held secret talks and Pyongyang expressed a strong willingness to improve ties, which have sunk to their lowest point in years.

During the meeting, the DPRK proposed a deal to repatriate some ROK citizens - either taken prisoner during the peninsula's 1950-53 war or abducted after the conflict ended - in return for Seoul's resuming economic aid to the DPRK, Yonhap said.

The Chosun Ilbo reported that the ROK had merely been in contact with Pyongyang through unspecified channels to propose meeting behind the scenes.

But the ROK Unification Ministry denied both of the reports, saying Seoul is not seeking secret talks with Pyongyang.

"There is nothing under way regarding the underwater dialogue," Kim Ho-nyeon, spokesman for the Unification Ministry, said referring to a phrase used in the newspaper report.

The report came as ROK Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong was on a visit to Beijing.

The ROK has publicly offered to talk with the DPRK many times, but Pyongyang has rejected the overtures as "insincere."

The DPRK's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper repeated that stance yesterday, calling the offers "hypocritical" and accusing the ROK of seeking confrontation.

Relations between the two sides have soured rapidly since ROK President Lee Myung-bak took office in February with a pledge to get tough on Pyongyang.

In response, the DPRK suspended reconciliation talks and took other angry steps to raise tensions, including halting two landmark joint projects - cross-border train service and a tourism program - and reducing the number of ROK citizens allowed access to a joint industrial park.