South Korea urges North to redouble reonciliation efforts after nuclear rift

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea pressed communist North Korea to redouble its reconciliation efforts Tuesday, as the estranged neighbors opened high-level talks amid rifts over the North’s nuclear program and the South’s delayed rice shipments.\nThe Cabinet-level meetings in Seoul resumed for a second day on Wednesday. The talks come after a historic cross-border test train-run on tracks restored earlier this month, the first time trains crossed the heavily armed border since rail links were cut early in the 1950-53 Korean War.\nSouth Korea hopes to win the North’s consent to formally reopen cross-border rail service. But the talks could easily plunge into stalemate over North Korea’s refusal to start dismantling its nuclear programs and the South’s refusal to ship promised rice to the impoverished North.\nNorth Korea scuttled similar talks last year after South Korea snubbed an earlier demand for rice shipments, citing concerns about the North’s missile tests in July 2006. Since then, North Korea has tested its first atomic bomb and is accused of stonewalling on pledges to start dismantling its nuclear programs.\nSouth Korea’s Minister of Unification Lee Jae-joung kicked off the second day of talks by urging both countries to improve ties “so that we won’t let down the expectations of our people.”\nWhile welcoming the North Korean delegation to Seoul a day earlier, Lee urged his counterparts to use the recent train test-run as a springboard for improved ties.\n“That experience is a victory that was jointly achieved by both North and South Korea,” Lee said. “Just as a train moves ahead, I think we should make efforts to ensure our talks move forward and never retreat.”\nOne sticking point remains North Korea’s promise in February to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in exchange for energy aid and political concessions, a pledge the North has yet to honor.\nThe South, meanwhile, is delaying about 400,000 tons of rice shipments promised to its neighbor in talks last month. The aid delivery was set to start in late May.\nEarlier, Lee attributed the delay to “various reasons related to peace on the Korean peninsula,” including fulfillment of the February nuclear agreement. But he said he did not believe North Korea’s delegation chief, Kwon Ho Ung, would protest, Yonhap news agency reported.\nNorth Korean media have criticized the South for trying to link food aid to the nuclear standoff.\nSouth Korean protesters rallied outside the site of the talks Tuesday to demand all aid be stopped, holding a sign that read “Down with Kim Jong Il.” Police broke up the small crowd before the North Korean delegates arrived.\nAt evening dinner banquet, Kwon, North Korea’s senior cabinet councilor, said he hoped the talks would be meaningful and productive. While the two Koreas focus on their shared interests, he said, relations “will not freeze but move ahead.”\nNorth Korea has been refusing to shut down its reactor until it receives funds from an account at a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau that was frozen when the U.S. blacklisted the bank in 2005.