Innerkoreanische Beziehungen & aktuelle Militärmannöver

[Kuwolsan]

N. Korean religious leaders call for inter-Korean talks

SEOUL, June 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korean religious leaders expressed disappointment over the cancellation of inter-Korean talks said they and hope a new round of negotiations can take place to ease regional tensions, a South Korean group said Tuesday. The Seoul-based Korea Conference of Religion for Peace (KCRP) said its representatives met with counterparts from the North's Korean Council of Religionists (KCR) in Beijing last Thursday and exchanged views on how best they can contribute to peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Byun Jin-heung, the KCRP's secretary general, told Yonhap News Agency that despite the last minute cancellation of government-to-government talks that were scheduled to have taken place in Seoul last week, North Korean religious leaders seemed to want cross-border negotiations to move forward. "They were committed to the stance that talks must continue regardless of format," the official said. He said such views were echoed by the South Koreans at the meeting who represented various religions in the country.
While the meeting, which would have been the first of its kind in six years, fell through because of disputes over the ranks of the chief negotiators, KCR leaders seemed to think that Pyongyang's choice did exercise authority to make decisions and that could have led to progress being made, he said. The North announced it would send Kang Ji-yong, a director at the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea as chief delegate and insisted that Seoul send Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae to the talks. When the South tapped Vice Unification Minister Kim Nam-shik as its chief negotiator, Pyongyang called off the talks at the last minute.
Byun, meanwhile, said that the North Korean religious leaders believe that talks between the two Koreas need to make headway as soon as possible, and hinted that such developments can lead to a summit meeting. "The North Koreans pointed out that the past two summits took place towards the end of South Korean president's term in office (which affected the success)," the official said. The leaders of the two Koreas met in 2000 and 2007, respectively.
The KCRP said the Beijing meeting was arranged when religious leaders from the two sides met at the Asian Conference of Religions for Peace (ACRP) head in Indonesia earlier in the month. At the gathering the ACRP's executive committee called on the two Koreas to jointly host the religious group's 2014 general assembly.

Etwas geschichtliche Hintergrundinformation zu den in obigem Artikel angesprochenen Kontakten zwischen dem KCR (Norden) und dem KCRP (Süden) bietet:

http://www.rethinkingmission.org.uk/pdfs...nities.pdf

Erster Treffpunkt zwischen religiösen Gruppen beider Länder war demnach also 1981 in Wien! Weiß jemand mehr dazu?