Seoul and Pyeongyang have agreed to hold the seventh round of ministerial talks in South Korea and to resume the suspended separated family reunions before the end of April, well-informed sources in Seoul and Beijing said Sunday.
"The two Koreas have contacted each other and conducted behind-the-scenes negotiations from late January to early March," the sources said. "The two governments agreed to normalize inter-Korean relations in April."
At negotiations about a month ago, Seoul and Pyeongyang reached an agreement to hold the next minister-level talks in Jeju province here, sources familiar with the talks said.
"The two Koreas will see momentous progress in inter-Korean relations in April," a senior Seoul official agreed.
"Envoys of the two Koreas secretly met in Gaeseong in the North in early February," said a foreign diplomat in Seoul, whose country also has a mission in Pyeongyang. More of the secret inter-Korean contacts reportedly took place outside DPRK.
Inter-Korean Red Cross talks and working-level talks on the North's Arirang festival, which begins April 29, will soon take place, the sources said.
"At meetings prior to the visit of US President George W. Bush to Seoul, Pyeongyang demanded that the Foal Eagle exercise by the South Korea-US Combined Forces Command be canceled this year," said the sources in Beijing and Seoul. "Because of that demand, the negotiations once reached an impasse." Foal Eagle is an annual military field exercise by the joint command, and has been conducted nearly annually since 1961.
Seoul made clear at the negotiations after Mr. Bush's visit that the Foal Eagle is a fixed, routine exercise and it would not be canceled. The two sides then agreed to suspend their talks in March while the military exercise in the South was taking place, but to resume contacts in April, the sources said.
( March 25, 2002)
