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North Korea says rejects South's secret summits offer
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SEOUL (Reuters) - Isolated North Korea rejected a proposal by rival South Korea at a secret meeting last month to hold a series of three summits in a bid to defuse tension on the divided peninsula, the North's KCNA state news agency reported on...
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North Korean soldiers march to perform guard duties at the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, about 55 km (34 miles) north of Seoul, April 24, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Lee Jin-man/Pool
SEOUL |
Wed Jun 1, 2011 3:28am EDT
SEOUL (Reuters) - Isolated North Korea rejected a proposal by rival South Korea at a secret meeting last month to hold a series of three summits in a bid to defuse tension on the divided peninsula, the North's KCNA state news agency reported on Wednesday.
South Korea had proposed in May holding three summits over the next 12 months, KCNA reported, citing a spokesman for the National Defense Commission.
"We have made it clear there would never be a summit meeting as long as the South maintains a hostile policy and insists (North Korea) should abandon its nuclear program and apologize over the two incidents," KCNA said.
As a precondition for bilateral talks, Seoul demands the North apologize for two deadly attacks on the peninsula last year that killed 50 South Koreans.
The North denies responsibility for the first attack, the sinking of the Cheonan warship, and says it was provoked into shelling the South Korean island after the South had test-fired shells into disputed waters.
In between the attacks, the North unveiled a uranium enrichment program which opens a second route to make a nuclear bomb alongside it plutonium program.
KCNA reported that the South had proposed the first summit be held at the border village of Panmunjom in June, a second in August in the North's capital, Pyongyang, and a third on the sidelines of an international nuclear summit in the South next year.
At the beginning of this year, the two Koreas said they wanted to ease tension and agreed to negotiations, but subsequent military talks broke down quickly without even agreement on an agenda.
Since then, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has extended the offer of a summit on a number of occasions, setting as a precondition the North's apology for the two attacks.
Both the United States and China -- the main allies of the South and North, respectively -- have urged the rivals to return to the negotiating table to sort out their differences to allow for the resumption of stalled nuclear talks.
The North walked out of the aid-for-disarmament talks more than two years ago after the United Nations imposed a new round of sanctions against it for conducting nuclear and missile tests.
Regional powers have agreed on step-by-step process to restart the six-party forum, which involves the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia.
First, there must be meaningful bilateral dialogue between the two Koreas. That can then followed by U.S.-North Korea dialogue, and lastly the six-party talks.
Both the United States and South Korea have sent mixed messages on the whether a Northern apology is a prerequisite for talks to advance to the second U.S.-North Korea dialogue.
The South's six party envoy has said an apology for the sinking of the corvette Cheonan and the shelling of the Yeonpyeong island in November are not necessarily pre-conditions for talks. But Lee has said they are.
(Reporting by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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