And now, the week in review of what's what at the Korean peninsula...
June 10, 2013
- Sunday's working level talks between the North and South Korea got themselves rolling toward the resolution of long-standing inter-Korean issues, but the preliminary shows that the two Koreas have a long road ahead of them.
- One of Korea's suspended nuclear reactors, the Hanbit 3, resumed operations, and it's been producing electricity since Monday afternoon.
June 11, 2013
- The North and South Korean government cancelled their plans for government talks. Seoul's Unification Ministry said just a few hours ago that the North called off Wednesday's inter-Korean talks at around 7 p.m., saying that it will not be sending its delegation to Seoul.
Ministry spokesperson Kim Hyung-suk said "North Korea sent a unilteral notification saying that it will postpone its plan to send a North Korean delegation due to the level of our top negotiator. We formed a five-member delegation led by Vice Unification Minister Kim Nam-shik and the North said its five-member delegation will be led by Kang Ji-young, director at the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, claiming he is a high-level official."
June 12, 2013
- Pyongyang cut off its communication line with South Korea, moments after the decision to call off their scheduled inter-Korean talks for now. The hotline, which was cut off earlier this year, was re-opened last week to prepare for the government-level talks that were supposed to take place this Wednesday. Seoul's Unification Ministry says North Korea seems to have cut off its inter-Korean channel at the border village of Panmunjom on Wednesday, just days after it was reopened.
June 13, 2013
- South Korea condemned over Pyongyang's attempt to distort the reason for the cancellation of the planned inter-Korean talks, urging the North to come to the bargaining table to resolve major issues.
- The US House of Representatives delivered a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking to re-designate North Korea as a "State Sponsor of Terrorism".
June 14, 2013
- Still no word from Pyongyang ever since North Korea cut the inter-Korean communication line at the border village of Panmunjom three days ago over the cancelled inter-Korean talks. Seoul continues to assert that they will not be the first to offer to re-start the talks, but added that they're still open to dialogue with the North.
- Power authorities were hoping two of the nation's 23 nuclear reactors would resume operations this week, but as of Friday only one is back online. The Hanbit 3 reactor has been running at full capacity since Thursday, adding one million kW that is more than enough to provide electricity to roughly one million households.
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