ID :
59796
Sat, 05/09/2009 - 19:24
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/59796
The shortlink copeid
N. Korea says there will be no talks with S. Korean government
(ATTN: UPDATES with remarks from a South Korean official in paras 4-5, additional
background)
SEOUL, May 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Saturday that there is no chance of any
serious dialogue between the two Koreas because of what it claimed was an
anti-North Korea campaign by Seoul's Lee Myung-bak administration.
"There simply is no need to even consider holding talks between the North and the
South while the Lee Myung-bak group is publicly trying to smear the name of our
republic and bluntly denying the republic," a spokesman for the Committee for the
Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said in a statement carried by the
North's Korean Central News Agency.
The statement comes amid reports that Seoul and Pyongyang are trying to set a
date for talks, possibly next week. The talks will be a follow-up to a meeting
held in the North's border town of Kaesong on April 21 over a joint industrial
park there.
An official at Seoul's Unification Ministry said the statement will not affect
the upcoming talks between the divided Koreas.
"I believe the Kaesong meeting will be dealt with separately from other
inter-Korean talks mentioned in the statement because the meeting comes at the
North's own proposal," the official said, asking not to be identified.
Seoul is hoping the upcoming talks will help win the release of a South Korean
worker detained by the communist North on March 30. The South Korean, an engineer
from Hyundai Asan, the South Korean developer and operator of the Kaesong
industrial complex, has been accused of criticizing the North's communist regime
and trying to incite a female North Korean worker in Kaesong to defect to the
South.
The unidentified spokesman for the North Korean committee claimed Seoul was
stepping up its anti-North Korea campaign by raising human rights issues he
claimed did not even exist.
"The committee strongly denounces the Lee Myung-bak group's anti-DPRK campaign as
a serious, unacceptable political provocation," the statement said, referring to
North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"The only outcome the Lee Myung-bak group will ever get from confrontation with
the DPRK is a miserable end," it added.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(MORE)
background)
SEOUL, May 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Saturday that there is no chance of any
serious dialogue between the two Koreas because of what it claimed was an
anti-North Korea campaign by Seoul's Lee Myung-bak administration.
"There simply is no need to even consider holding talks between the North and the
South while the Lee Myung-bak group is publicly trying to smear the name of our
republic and bluntly denying the republic," a spokesman for the Committee for the
Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said in a statement carried by the
North's Korean Central News Agency.
The statement comes amid reports that Seoul and Pyongyang are trying to set a
date for talks, possibly next week. The talks will be a follow-up to a meeting
held in the North's border town of Kaesong on April 21 over a joint industrial
park there.
An official at Seoul's Unification Ministry said the statement will not affect
the upcoming talks between the divided Koreas.
"I believe the Kaesong meeting will be dealt with separately from other
inter-Korean talks mentioned in the statement because the meeting comes at the
North's own proposal," the official said, asking not to be identified.
Seoul is hoping the upcoming talks will help win the release of a South Korean
worker detained by the communist North on March 30. The South Korean, an engineer
from Hyundai Asan, the South Korean developer and operator of the Kaesong
industrial complex, has been accused of criticizing the North's communist regime
and trying to incite a female North Korean worker in Kaesong to defect to the
South.
The unidentified spokesman for the North Korean committee claimed Seoul was
stepping up its anti-North Korea campaign by raising human rights issues he
claimed did not even exist.
"The committee strongly denounces the Lee Myung-bak group's anti-DPRK campaign as
a serious, unacceptable political provocation," the statement said, referring to
North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"The only outcome the Lee Myung-bak group will ever get from confrontation with
the DPRK is a miserable end," it added.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(MORE)
