North, South Korea Call Off Aid Negotiations

BEIJING —  Talks between the rival Koreas on aid to the famine-stricken North collapsed today after negotiators from Pyongyang said the discussions were stalemated, a South Korean official said.

“At midnight, North Korea unilaterally told us they did not think it was necessary to hold another session because there was no change in our positions,” the head of the South Korean delegation, Jeong Se Hyun, told reporters.

The talks about fertilizer aid to the North were the first direct inter-Korean discussions since 1994, and were set to reopen today after a three-day deadlock.

Jeong made clear there was little chance of restarting the talks in Beijing, but said the two sides hoped to meet in future.

The talks started last Saturday but broke down on Tuesday over Seoul’s insistence that it would offer aid only if the North committed itself to allow reunions of families divided since the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea--struggling to feed its 23 million people after three years of floods and drought compounded by the shortcomings of its collectivist farming system--has said it would discuss the family issue only after receiving fertilizer.

The two sides spent much of Friday publicly berating each other’s positions in between intensive, last-ditch efforts to rekindle the negotiations.