*** INTER-KOREAN RELATIONS

S. Korea 'Keeping Door Open' to N. Korea Despite Failed Talks

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- South Korea is "keeping its door open" to North Korea, its point man on Pyongyang said on Feb. 10, even though the socialist state's military said earlier it will no longer seek talks with Seoul after their first defense talks in nearly half a year collapsed.

   "We are keeping our door open. We will wait and see," Unification Minister Hyun In-taek told reporters when asked to comment on the prospect of inter-Korean relations after the two-day colonel-level talks ended Wednesday with no agreement.

   In a bulletin carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, the North's delegation to the talks said on Feb. 10 its South Korean counterpart "unilaterally walked out" after refusing to compromise on ways to set up higher-level defense talks.

   North Korea had proposed earlier that the countries hold such a rare meeting to ease tensions that sharply rose when the North bombarded a South Korean island in November, killing four people.

   "The army and people of the (North) do not feel any need to deal with the group of traitors any longer now that they do not wish to see the north-south relations improved but totally reject the dialogue itself," the North said in the lengthy bulletin.

   "We will have to keep watching since the preliminary military talks broke down," Hyun said, referring to the meeting early this week that sought to work out details for a higher-level one.

   Hyun, who did not elaborate, was speaking on the sidelines of a ceremony for the North Korean Refugees Foundation in Seoul where he gave a speech on the situation of defectors here.

   In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters that the North missed "an important opportunity" by allowing the talks to break down.

   "Clearly, having North Korea walking out puts them in the category of a missed opportunity," he said.

  
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S. Korean Watchdog to Open New Center for N. Korean Rights Violations

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- South Korea's top human rights watchdog said on Feb. 10 it will set up a new reporting agency to handle complaints of breaching of human rights by North Korea and another body to keep record of such violations.

   The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) announced during its standing committee meeting on Feb. 10 that it will open the North Korean Human Rights Violations Reporting Center as well as the Hall of North Korean Human Rights Violation Records.

   The NHRC said its plan to open these new bodies will help it "execute mid- to long-term goals to improve North Korean human rights."

   Previously, the commission's North Korean human rights division, which opened in April last year, had handled complaints of rights violations by the socialist regime. Under the new plan, the reporting center will take grievances and the NHRC's investigation bureau will conduct probes as necessary.

   Cases that don't get picked up by the investigation bureau will still be stored at the hall of violation records.

   The NHRC said cases could include torture or other forms of physical abuse at prison camps, or violent crackdowns on would-be defectors at the North Korean border.

   "It's necessary to better organize data on complaints regarding North Korean human rights violations," said Lee Yong-geun, head of the North Korean human rights division. "This year, the budget related to North Korean human rights has been slashed, so we came up with the idea of a new reporting center to compensate for that."

   But others at the NHRC voiced their opposition over what they charged was a hastily drawn-up plan. Jang Hyang-sook, one of the standing committee members, said she saw no grounds for the new center and the records hall.

   "There hasn't been enough discussion on this plan and this plan would entail an organizational overhaul," Jang said. "I can't accept this idea. To carry out future plans to improve North Korean human rights situations, we've got a special committee for that (within the NHRC)."

   North Korea is considered one of the world's worst perpetrators of human rights violations. Its leader Kim Jong-il doesn't condone dissent and holds many people in political prison camps.

   The North has bristled at charges that it is a major human rights violator, saying such accusations are merely a U.S.-lead attempt to topple the communist regime.

  
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N. Korea Turns to S. Korea's Political Parties for Talks

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea made another proposal for the resumption of talks with South Korea on Feb. 11, this time to Seoul's political parties, apparently as its chance of winning concessions from the Seoul government has nearly disappeared.

   The proposal came one day after the communist nation's military said it will no longer deal with the South Korean government, accusing the latter of lacking any willingness to improve relations between the countries.

   "It has become clearer that the South Korean authorities are not interested in dialogue but keen on stoking confrontation only," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary moved shortly after military talks between the two Koreas ended with no progress Thursday.

   "This made the DPRK (North Korea) just in its stand that there is no need to have dealings with the South anymore," it said.

   North Korea, apparently still in need of economic and humanitarian assistance from the South, sought to find other ways to resume dialogue with Seoul, sending a two-page letter to each of South Korea's four ruling and opposition parties on Feb. 11 to demand talks.

   "Easing the tension between the North and South that has come to its worst and opening a new chapter of relationship for peace and unification are an unchanging demand of the nation," the North's Asia-Pacific Peace Committee said in its letter to Seoul's ruling Grand National Party, dated Feb. 2.

   The North Korean committee had proposed holding talks with the Seoul government in a message delivered to Seoul's unification ministry on Jan. 31, but Seoul rejected the proposal, saying no meaningful dialogue can be held until Pyongyang shows its commitment to denuclearization.

   Talks between the two Koreas were suspended after a South Korean warship sank in a torpedo attack by a North Korean submarine near a border in the Yellow Sea in March.

   Forty-six South Korean sailors were killed in the sinking of the warship Cheonan. Four other South Koreans, including two civilians, were killed on Nov. 23 from the North's shelling of a South Korean island, Yeonpyeong, near the maritime border in the Yellow Sea.

   "We are hoping to talk frankly with anyone, whether a ruling or opposition party or a liberal or a conservative party, to improve the North-South relations, and that is the true goal of our proposal for talks," the North Korean committee said in its letters to Seoul's political parties, including the main opposition Democratic Party and the Democratic Labor Party.

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