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          S. Korea Issues Positive Response to North's Surprise Offer

   by Steve Herman

   South Korea is reacting positively to a surprise offer from the North
   for talks on a wide range of issues. This marks a significant reversal
   of tensions on the peninsula, which had been at their highest state in
   decades.

   South Korea's Unification Ministry says Seoul is taking positively
   Pyongyang's proposal for working-level talks. It says this would be an
   opportunity to build trust between the two Koreas and that details
   relating to the date and agenda will be announced later.

   North Korea's surprise offer of talks was issued in the name of the
   Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland. The last
   item of the noon newscast on state radio (Thursday) stated Pyongyang
   would allow Seoul to set the place and date of the meeting.

   The North Korean announcer says the North proposes holding talks about
   normalizing "the operation in the Kaesong Industrial Zone and the
   resumption of tours to Mt. Kumgang. Humanitarian issues, such as the
   reunion of separated families and their relatives, can also be
   discussed during the talks, if necessary."

   The industrial zone, just north of the border, ceased operations in
   April, when the North pulled its 43,000 factory workers from the
   complex.

   Seoul has already offered working-level talks, but only to discuss
   allowing the managers of the more than 100 South Korean factories in
   the zone to be able to retrieve raw materials and finished goods left
   behind after they pulled out.

   The Kumgang mountain tourism resort, another rare inter-Korean
   cooperative venture also generated millions of dollars worth of revenue
   for the communist government. Three years ago, the North seized the
   assets of the South Korean government and private entities at the
   resort. It expelled the South Korean workers who had remained behind to
   maintain hotels and restaurants following a 2008 incident in which a
   South Korean was shot dead near the resort by a North Korean soldier.

   The North's relatively flexible offer of talks about the halted
   projects is seen as a significant reversal after recent months of
   bellicose rhetoric. Pyongyang had threatened to launch a nuclear war --
   a threat not taken very seriously by Seoul or Washington. It also
   declared the 1953 Korean War armistice to be void and vowed to continue
   pursuing its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in
   defiance of international sanctions.

   The offer of talks from Pyongyang was made just after South Korean
   President Park Geun-hye, at a Memorial Day ceremony,  gave a speech
   that contained remarks directed at the North.

   President Park says "North Korea must give up its policies that are
   fueling its isolation and backwardness and bravely accept the hand of
   reconciliation being offered by South Korea and the global community
   and strive for mutual prosperity."

   The two Koreas have never established diplomatic relations nor signed a
   peace treaty.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/skorea-issues-positive-response-to-no
   rths-offer/1676192.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/skorea-issues-positive-response-to-norths-offer/1676192.html