4th S-N ministerial talks open in Pyongyang Tuesday

The fourth round of the inter-Korean ministerial talks, which will be the last South-North Korean project this year, will be held in Pyongyang Tuesday through Friday for three nights and four days.

Unification Minister Park Jae-Kyu said Monday that the talks will sum up all the inter-Korean projects undertaken since the South-North summit meeting in June and will discuss the direction of the bilateral relations of next year. He said that the South would concentrate on translating into action the agreements the two sides have reached rather than on producing new agreements.

However, a possibility for a cold atmosphere in the talks cannot be ruled out because the two sides have expressed their respective intention to take issue with problems that took place in the course of carrying out inter-Korean projects, so far.

The two sides will sign the four agreements they reached in the second working-level talks for economic cooperation last month, including the one on the guarantee of investment, during the ministerial talks.

They will also readjust the timetables for the inter-Korean projects that they have already agreed on but have not yet implemented. They are the third round of exchange visits by separated families, confirmation of the life or death of family members, their addresses and exchange of letters, visits to the South by an economic inspection team and Mt. Halla sightseeing team, and the Seoul visit by Kim Yong-Nam, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly and the North's ceremonial head of state.