Hotline Reopened between Two Koreas

Local Editor

North Korea said Friday it would restore its severed hotline with South Korea, taking another step towards dialing down months of tension.

In a sign of the horse-trading to come, the North said the proposed talks should initially be held at a lower level than the South's wish for a ministerial meeting, and should take place on North Korean territory.

Such a framework was preferable given that "bilateral relations have been stalemated for years and mistrust has reached an extreme", said a spokesman for Pyongyang's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea.
The hotline - suspended by the North in March as military tensions flared - would be restored from 2:00 pm Friday, the spokesman added.
The Red Cross link that runs through the border truce village of Panmunjom has long been a vital source of government-to-government communication in the absence of diplomatic relations.

The CPRK statement came a day after the two Koreas unexpectedly reached a snap agreement on opening a dialogue, and a day before a US-China summit at which the North's nuclear program will be high on the agenda.
The proposed agenda for the North-South talks involves both commercial and humanitarian issues, including reopening the Kaesong joint industrial complex -- which lies just inside the North's side of the border -- and resuming cross-border family reunions.

The CPRK spokesman on Friday said the talks should be held in Kaesong, rather than the South Korean capital, and on June 9, three days earlier than the date proposed by Seoul.

Both sides have sought to portray themselves as the one that initiated the dialogue initiative, and South Korea's Unification Ministry said it was "studying" the counter-offer.

The Kaesong complex, established in 2004 as a symbol of inter-Korean cooperation, was the most high-profile casualty of the recent tensions.
Operations ground to a halt after the North pulled all its 53,000 workers out in early April. The South withdrew its managers and officials soon afterwards.
Meanwhile, UN chief Ban Ki-moon - a former foreign minister of South Korea - also welcomed the announcement.

Source: News agencies, Edited by website team