Inter-Korean talks end in stalemate

 Relations between North and South Korea remained uncertain Saturday, after two days of high-level talks without a tangible outcome.

The chances of a breakthrough had looked relatively optimistic when Friday’s vice minister-level dialogue was extended by an additional day.

But the meeting, which was arranged as part of a landmark August cooperation deal, closed with neither a joint statement nor a plan for more dialogue.

It appeared that a major sticking point was matching Seoul’s demand for regular inter-Korean family reunions with Pyongyang’s hopes of resurrecting joint tours to North Korea’s Mount Kumgang region -- that project was put on hold when a South Korean visitor was shot dead in 2008.

The South’s Vice Unification Minister Hwang Boo-gi insisted that the two subjects should not be linked as he addressed reporters in Kaesong, just north of the Koreas’ border.

“The government stressed that it is not proper to connect the issue of separated families to the resumption of the tour,” Hwang said.

Seoul had hoped to host the meeting, but Kaesong Industrial Complex was chosen following working-level discussions a fortnight ago -- the North’s facility houses more than 120 South Korean firms and is seen as a last shred holding together bilateral ties.

While the latest talks were an achievement in the context of sporadic post-Korean War communications, a number of significant hurdles continue to pose a challenge going forward -- not least the North’s nuclear ambitions, which are consistently condemned by the South and its ally the United States.