简体中文
South Korea offered on Tuesday to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to hold working- level dialogue on resuming tours to Mount Kumgang on Oct. 2, a week later than the date Seoul suggested earlier.
South Korea sent a notice via communication lines in the truce village of Panmunjom at around 2:10 p.m. local time to hold working-level talks on restarting the Mount Kumgang tour on the cited date at the scenic mountain resort in the DPRK's east coast, an official at Seoul's Unification Ministry said by phone.
The proposed date was a week later than the date of Sept. 25 that Seoul originally suggested. In response to the original proposal, the DPRK had made a counterproposal to hold such talks in late August or early September.
Seoul has claimed that the issue of restarting the Mount Kumgang tour should be addressed separately with the issue of reunion of families separated by the Korean War (1950-53), hinting that it intended to deal with the tour issue only after completing the family reunion event.
The two Koreas agreed to hold the family reunion event for six days starting Sept. 25 in Mount Kumgang.
The ministry official said Seoul believed that effective dialogue on the Mount Kumgang tour could be achieved by delaying such talks by a week, noting that South Korea and the DPRK were in the process of discussing the family reunion event and the way of normalizing the Kaesong industrial complex in a constructive way.
The two Koreas agreed to reopen the jointly operated factory park in the DPRK's border town of Kaesong on Aug. 14, promising to make joint efforts to prevent recurrence of unilateral shutdown of the park in the future. The two sides have been discussing how to set up a joint committee for operating the industrial zone.
