TENSIONS ON the Korean peninsula remained high yesterday after an eventful day, which began with signs of greater consensus about resuming six-party talks on the North’s nuclear weapons programme. However, they soon deteriorated amid a series of incidents that highlighted the high level of paranoia in the region.
Things took an initial positive turn after China’s top nuclear envoy Wu Dawei said he had travelled to North Korea and appeared confident that the two allies had reached consensus about restarting the long-stalled talks on nuclear disarmament.
Both Koreas remain officially at war since the armistice which ended the 1950-1953 war that tore the peninsula apart. No peace treaty has ever been signed.
Mr Wu “exchanged views with North Korea about maintaining peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and restarting the process of the six-party talks,” according to the Xinhua news agency. Resuming the multi-party talks – which include the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States – would be a major breakthrough. North Korea walked away from six-nation nuclear talks last year in protest at international condemnation of a long-range rocket launch.
Prospects for restarting the talks took a further turn for the worse after an international investigation in May blamed North Korea for torpedoing the South Korean warship Cheonan and killing 46 sailors.
North Korea strenuously denies attacking the ship, citing an American plot, but South Korea insists on an apology for the sinking of the Cheonan before it can even consider a resumption of talks.
The South Korean Red Cross has called on North Korea to release a South Korean fishing boat and its crew, one day after North Korea said it had seized the boat and four South Korean, and three Chinese fishermen on August 8th for fishing illegally in its exclusive economic zone.
At the same time, authorities in Seoul arrested a South Korean religious activist as he returned home across the heavily fortified border after an illegal trip to North Korea.
UN command spokesman Kim Yong-kyu said South Korean officials took the Rev Han Sang-ryol into custody as he walked through the truce village of Panmunjom along the border separating the two Koreas.
During his trip, Mr Han blamed the South Korea government for the sinking of the Cheonan and accused South Korean president Lee Myung-bak of raising tension with North Korea by discarding rapprochement accords and holding military exercises with the United States, in the version reported by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency.