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Could relations between North and South Korea be on the mend? On Wednesday, the two countries spoke directly for the first time in weeks. But South Korea still says that the North's offer for talks is insincere.
On Wednesday, North Korea offered to meet South Korea to discuss the resumption of cross-border tourist trips. In addition, the North says it’s willing to cooperate to get a factory complex up and running again, that’s employed by North and South Koreans.
The rival neighbors contacted each other for the first time in weeks through a border phone hotline.
The North, which has appealed almost daily for talks since the start of the year, again offered to come to the negotiating table by proposing discussions about reopening tourist links, brought to a halt after the shooting of a South Korean tourist in 2008.
Earlier Wednesday, Seoul gave some ground by agreeing to reopen a Red Cross communications hotline at the border, closed after the sinking of South Korea’s Cheonan warship by North Korea last year.
The South's unification ministry says the two sides talked around noon for ten minutes.
Seoul says its impoverished neighbor is only reaching out for talks in order to win aid and financial support, and that it will only hold (quote) "real talks" about last year's two deadly attacks against the South.
Relations between the two Korea plummeted to their lowest level in years after the sinking of a South Korean warship and the shelling of a South Korean island last year, killing a total of 50 people.
The North denies the South's claim it torpedoed the ship, and aid it attacked the island after South Korean shells landed in its waters.
South Korean president Lee Myung-bak's government is under pressure over its perceived weak response. It has vowed to hit back hard the next time it is attacked, promising to retaliate with air power and bombs.
