North Korea dismisses South's talks offer: Yonhap
7 Aug 2017 5:58 PM GMT
North Korea dismissed offers of talks from the South during a rare exchange between the two rivals' foreign ministers, Seoul's Yonhap news agency reported today after the UN imposed a new round of sanctions on nuclear-armed Pyongyang. News of the brief encounter on the sidelines of a regional forum in Manila came as the South's President Moon Jae-In urged a "peaceful resolution" to the tensions in a telephone conversation with his US counterpart Donald Trump. Even a conventional conflict on the peninsula could cost a million dead or wounded within months, estimates say.
Moon told Trump the South "cannot let another war to break out" on the peninsula after the 1950-53 Korean War that sealed the division of two Koreas, the presidential Blue House said in a statement.
The South's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-Wha shook hands with her Northern counterpart Ri Yong-Ho ahead of an ASEAN Regional Forum dinner yesterday, Yonhap said.
Kang urged Ri to accept Seoul's offers of military talks to lower tensions on the divided peninsula, and for discussions on a new round of reunions for divided families. The encounter came a day after the UN Security Council passed sweeping sanctions on the North over its first successful test of an ICBM.
Next Story
