Speaking at a biennial summit of the Asia-Europe Meeting in Milan on Thursday, President Park pressed North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program and show sincerity in addressing its dismal human rights record.
North Korea claimed that Park “again made reckless remarks,” against Pyongyang, slamming Park for showing a “double-dealing attitude” as she openly talks about dialogue while slandering the North behind the scenes.
“This is another unpardonable politically-motivated provocation to (North Korea) and grave outbursts chilling the atmosphere of the hard-won North-South dialogue,” a spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said through the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
The North warned that if Seoul wants to have inter-Korean dialogue and improve its relations with Pyongyang, President Park should stop making obstructive remarks.
“She had better clearly know that she may bring inter-Korean relations to total collapse due to her bad habit of wrongly wagging her tongue,” the spokesman noted.
The North’s reaction came as signs of better inter-Korean relations are growing following North Korean high-ranking officials’ surprise visit to South Korea on Oct. 4.
The two sides agreed to hold more high-level talks in early November at the latest. Earlier this week, South Korea proposed to hold the meeting on Oct. 30, though the North has kept silent.
But the recent exchange of fire between the two sides across the tense border over Seoul activists’ flying of anti-Pyongyang leaflets reflects the grave reality of the divided peninsula, which remains technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.
The six-party talks on denuclearizing North Korea have been dormant since late 2008 as Pyongyang walked away from the negotiation table. The forum involves the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
Since its third nuclear test last year, North Korea has repeatedly expressed its willingness to return to the six-party forum “without preconditions.”
South Korea and the U.S. have said that Pyongyang must first show its sincerity toward denuclearization before the disarmament-for-aid talks can resume. (Yonhap)
