19 July, 2017
In August 2015, North Korea's No. 2 leader, Hwang Pyong So, and South Korea's national security director, Kim Kwan-jin, met at Panmunjom and reached a deal on averting possible bloodshed over a land-mine blast that maimed two South Korean soldiers.
"After North Korea's frequent missile tests including its very first ICBM test, the worldwide community has vowed to tighten sanctions and China simply can not exclude itself from the recent movement, although it probably does not want to indefinitely cut off fuel sales to the North", Kang said.
North Korea raised the stakes earlier this month with a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that its defence officials said marked the "final step" in creating a "confident and powerful nuclear state that can strike anywhere on earth".
In past meetings, North Korea has demanded that the South stop holding joint military exercises with the United States and end the use of loudspeakers to broadcast propaganda along the border.
Prices stabilised after the sharp spikes through the first week of July, likely because North Korea encouraged fuel smuggling across its border with China, Kang said.
Moon, who calls his predecessors' hard-line policies a total failure, has said he would employ both dialogue and pressure to resolve the North Korea standoff.
If held, it would be the first such meeting between military authorities of the two sides since a working-level meeting that failed to produce an agreement on October 15, 2014, at Panmunjom, according to Yonhap News Agency.
North Korea has attended the ARF annually, but it has not been confirmed yet whether it will send its top diplomat to this year's gathering.
The offer of talks, the first since South Korea elected President Moon Jae In, came as the Red Cross in Seoul proposed a separate meeting to discuss reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. The government is mulling to pull the money out of the South-North Cooperation Fund where 200 billion won ($176.4 million) is immediately available. Yonhap suggests the offer might have been made sooner if North Korea did not insist on proceeding with provocative missile tests.
In the proposal for talks, South Korea did not elaborate on the meaning of hostile military activities, which varies between the two Koreas.
Primary users of fuel products in North Korea include fishermen, farmers, truckers and the military.
Moon suggested this month that hostile military activities at the border be ended on July 27, the anniversary of the 1953 armistice agreement.
"There are some people who think we should engage early with Pyongyang. They can signal to the other side what they want, what problems or issues they have with the other side", said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea analyst with Troy University in Seoul.
North Korea says South Korea abducted the waitresses, but Seoul has said they defected of their own free will. Cho said this matter was not included on the talks agenda.