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South Korean Committee for Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration Chairman Lee Chang-bok (fifth from left) ahead of his departure for meeting with a North Korean delegation on June 20, 2018.
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N. Korean delegation abruptly leaves for North upon orders from Pyongyang
A series of working-level non-government meetings between South and North Korea scheduled for May 23–26 was canceled following a sudden announcement from the North Korean side.
The North Korean delegation had traveled to the Chinese city of Shenyang for discussions with South Korean groups when it abruptly departed following an order on May 23 to return to Pyongyang. With the meetings having been originally proposed by the North Korean side, the next question revolves around the reason for the sudden shift from Pyongyang.
According to accounts from multiple figures from South Korean groups who planned to meet with the North, the cancelation was announced in a fax sent by the North that day to the Seoul office of the South Korean Committee for Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration (permanent Chairman Lee Chang-bok). The fax was sent shortly after permanent representative Cho Sung-woo and other officials from the committee had boarded a flight to Shenyang, the scheduled venue for discussions with the North on May 23–24 – providing evidence of how suddenly the reversal of Pyongyang’s meeting plans came about. While the North’s fax reportedly cited “reasons regarding the political situation” in the meetings’ cancellation, no precise reason was identified.
“My understanding is that the North Korean delegation that was in Shenyang to meet with the South (including Yang Chol-sik, vice chairman of the North Korean Committee for Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration) left for the North after an order from headquarters on the morning of May 23 to ‘return to Pyongyang,’” a source said.
The inter-Korean working-level non-government meetings were originally scheduled after the North Korean side faxed a proposal to hold them to the South Korean committee on May 6. The schedule for Shenyang on May 23–26 was to include meetings of the South and North Korean committees on May 23–24, discussions between the Movement for One Korea (chairman Cho Seong-woo) and the North Korean branch of the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation (KCRC) on May 24–25, and a meeting between the South and North Korean branches of KCRC on May 26. The two sides were to discuss matters including a joint event to commemorate the June 15 Joint Declaration from 2000.
A South Korean government official did not comment in detail on the issue.
“It looks like we’ll have to watch the situation a bit more to know if there were any policy implications to the talks’ cancelation or if it was a working-level technical issue,” the official said.
By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer
Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
