ZCZC
BFF-12
NKOREA-SKOREA-DIPLOMACY-OFFICE,LEAD
Two Koreas open joint liaison office in North: pool report
KAESONG, North Korea, Sept 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – North and South Korea
opened a joint liaison office in the Northern city of Kaesong on Friday as
they knit closer ties ahead of President Moon Jae-in’s visit to Pyongyang
next week.
“A new chapter in history is open here today,” South Korean unification
minister Cho Myoung-gyon told a ceremony, according to a pool report.
“This liaison office is another symbol of peace jointly created by the
South and the North.”
The building includes separate Northern and Southern offices and a joint
conference room, and is intended to facilitate cross-border exchanges
following the Panmunjom Summit between Moon and the North’s leader Kim Jong
Un, the unification ministry said.
Seoul and Pyongyang have sought to pursue joint projects in multiple fields
since their April summit in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the
peninsula, even as US efforts to secure concrete progress towards North
Korea’s denuclearisation have stalled.
Moon is due in the North’s capital on Tuesday for a three-day visit, his
third summit with Kim this year after he orchestrated a rapid diplomatic thaw
on the peninsula and brokered June’s Singapore summit between the North
Korean leader and US President Donald Trump.
There Kim backed denuclearisation of the “Korean peninsula”, but no details
were agreed and Washington and Pyongyang have sparred since over what that
means and how it will be achieved.
The North was “willing to denuclearise”, Moon said Thursday, while the US
was willing to “end hostile relations” and provide security guarantees, “but
there is a blockage as both sides are demanding each other to act first”.
BSS/AFP/MRI/0906 HRS