PEOPLES DAILY , MONDAY, JUNE 10, 2013
PAGE 33
International
North and South Korea hold official talks
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orth and South Korean officials have sat down for their first talks in years, confronting decades of mutual distrust in a search for some positive end to months of soaring military tensions. The working-level discussions, which began on Sunday at around 10:00am (0100 GMT) in the border truce village of Panmunjom, were
intended to pave the way for ministerial-level talks in Seoul on Wednesday. Th e a g e n d a f o c u s e d o n restoring suspended commercial links, including the Kaesong joint industrial complex that the North effectively shut down in April as tensions between the historic rivals peaked. The talks came about after an
Syria opposition sticks to talks boycott
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yria’s opposition has reiterated its decision to boycott planned peace talks in Geneva, as rebel fighters reeled from losing a strategic city to forces of President Bashar al-Assad. George Sabra, the interim head of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), however, called for urgent military assistance to help rebel forces battle the Syrian army. His statement came days after regime forces seized the key border city of Qusayr and other adjoining areas. “What is happening in Syria today completely closes the doors on
unexpected reversal on Thursday from North Korea, which suddenly dropped its default tone of high-decibel belligerence and proposed opening a dialogue. South Korea responded swiftly with its offer of a ministerial meeting in Seoul, the North countered with a request for lower-level talks first and after some relatively benign to-and-fro about the best venue - Sunday’s meet
in Panmunjom was agreed. In a further signal of intent, North Korea on Friday restored its official hotline with the South, which it had severed in March. The two Koreas last held working talks in February 2011, and they have not met at the ministerial level since 2007. The move towards dialogue has been broadly welcomed -
Asia & Middle East
given the threats of nuclear war that were being flung around in April and May - but there is sizable scepticism in the South and elsewhere about Pyongyang’s intentions. “The North Korean offer has all of the hallmarks of Pyongyang’s diplomacy,” said Stephan Haggard, a North Korea expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
any discussions about international conferences and political initiatives,” Sabra told a press conference in Istanbul on Saturday. He was referring to an initiative headed by Washington and Moscow to bring the regime and opposition to peace talks in Geneva. “The war declared by the regime and its allies in the region has reached a level we cannot ignore,” Sabra said. Sabra had already said on May 30 that the opposition would not attend a peace conference while Iran and the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah were supporting Assad’s troops on the ground.
Al-Qaeda chief annuls Syrian-Iraqi merger
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l-Qaeda’s top leader has ruled against the merger of two jihadi groups based in Syria and Iraq, in an attempt to put an end to increased tensions and infighting among members. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ruling came in a letter addressed to the leaders of Syrian-based Jabhat alNusra and the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), which is the largest jihadi umbrella group in the country. The ruling comes two months after the leader of ISI, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a merger with al-Nusra to form the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),
saying that al-Nusra was “merely an extension and part of the Islamic State of Iraq”. However, the unilateral move led to defections, infighting and a breakdown in operations as members disagreed over who commanded the battlefield. In the letter, Zawahiri said Baghdadi was “wrong” to declare the merger without consulting or even alerting al-Qaeda’s leadership. He added that Syria was the “spatial state” for al-Nusra, headed by Abou Mohammad al-Joulani, while Baghdadi’s rule would be limited to Iraq.
The interim head of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC),George Sabra
Nuri al-Maliki visits Kurdistan to ease tensions
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raq’s Prime Minister Nuri alMaliki visited the Kurdistan region on Sunday for the first time in more than two years, in an attempt to resolve a long-running dispute over oil and land that has strained Iraq’s unity to the limit. With the country’s Shi’ite leadership facing fallout from the Syrian conflict, which has invigorated Sunni insurgents in Iraq and prompted warnings of civil war, better relations with the Kurds could ease some pressure on Maliki. The Shi’ite premier was met on the Arbil airport tarmac by Kurdistan Regional Government President MasoudBarzani and a delegation of high-ranking Kurdish officials, but little concrete progress was expected immediately. Maliki’s last official trip to Kurdistan was in 2010, when the “Arbil Agreement” was struck, allowing him to form a powersharing government among majority Shi’ite Muslims, Sunnis and ethnic Kurds after months of wrangling. That deal, like others after,
was never fully implemented, and Baghdad’s central government and the country’s autonomous Kurdistan region have since been at odds over oil and disputed territories along their internal boundary. “This will be an initial step on the track to finding solutions for all outstanding problems,” Maliki said in a speech before a cabinet meeting in Arbil. Iraqi and Kurdish officials were due to hold further talks after that meeting. Unless the current talks succeed, Iraqi Kurdish President MasoudBarzani said last week the self-ruled enclave would be forced to seek a “new form of relations” with Baghdad. Kurdistan has been an autonomous part of Iraq since 1991, running its own administration and armed forces, but the region relies on the national government for a share of the budget financed by the OPEC nation’s oil revenues.
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (centre R) shakes hands with Iraqi Kurdish President MasoudBarzani (centre L) in Arbid, 350 km north of Baghdad.