Yonhap News reported that the governments of both Korea and the United States have officially urged North Korea to approve separated Korean War refugees who have families on either side of the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) to reunite and also to release American prisoners that are still held captive within their borders.
The 6 Party Talk representatives of Korea and U.S. got together at the U.S. State Department at Washington D.C. to discuss specific matters regarding the two nations’ diplomatic strategies toward North Korea. After the meeting, the two representatives had a press conference where they announced the matters that were discussed.
Jun-kuk Hwang, the Korean representative for the 6 Party Talks told Yonhap News that, “The U.S. and Korea will be working to solve humanitarian issues including the meeting of North and South Korean separated families and the release of American prisoners.“ Hwang added that both governments have urged North Korea to resolve all these issues and come out of political and diplomatic isolation.
It is rather remarkable that representatives of the U.S. and Korea met to talk of such issues. The two representatives also added that the two governments also plan to move onto more complicated matters such as North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons and the recommencement of the 6 Party Talks as well as cooperation with other nations that can be affected by the issues including Japan, China, and Russia.
Representative Hwang is scheduled to meet with other key figures in the U.S. administration, including spokespersons from the U.S. Department of Defense and the White House.
Meanwhile, the Incheon Asian Games are starting very soon and North Korea has already informed South Korea that although their national team of athletes will be visiting Korea to participate in the tournament, they canceled an original plan to also dispatch a team of supporters. The South Korean government however, had already approved the admittance of such a team into their territory, but many experts have expressed that this was North Korea’s act of retaliation against the US-Korea joint military trainings that took place earlier this month.
The IAEA recently let the world know that North Korea has reactivated one of its major nuclear power plants and that the possibility that DPRK may be producing more nuclear weapons should not be discarded.
