Officials from the Koreas held a senior meeting on Wednesday, February 12, to discuss potential cooperative profitable projects and to pursue better ties. This was the highest-level talk between the two Koreas in several years.
The meeting was initially inquired by North Korea (Pyongyang), after raising tensions with nuclear missiles directed toward Seoul, South Korea and Washington D.C. In a second meeting this month, the war-torn families from the Korean War were reunited. South Korea began the discussion by establishing a method to make the reunions run without problems, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.
In September, North Korea canceled reunions because of the joined U.S. and South Korean military drills, but it is predicted that North Korea will continue the reunions because it urgently needs financial support from South Korea. South Korea has declared that the first step towards improving the relationship between the two countries is the disarmament of nuclear weapons.
Pyongyang has undergone its third nuclear test and is trying to build nuclear-armed missiles aimed at the United States, but many say that North Korea currently lacks the technology to accomplish such a feat. North Korea has also expanded its uranium enrichment facility and also restarted a nuclear reactor.
North Korea established its own terms during the high-level meeting. It requested that South Korea would: join in the start of a lucrative joint tourism project in North Korea, increase humanitarian aid for North Korea, and decrease military training with the United States. The Korean Peninsula is currently in a state of war, since the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 ended with a cease-fire.
