北, 美실무협상 제안에는 '무응답'... 南에게는 비난

At their historic encounter at Panmunjeom late last month,... the leaders of North Korea and the U.S. agreed to resume working-level denuclearization talks in a matter of weeks.
Now, sources say... Washington has proposed a meeting to the North,... but the regime has yet to respond.
Oh Jung-hee has more.
"Probably the next two or three weeks, probably in the middle of the month would be my guess, at a place yet to be determined. But the teams will gather, they'll start working, they'll start exchanging ideas."
Two weeks have now passed since the historic rendezvous between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjeom.
According to sources, the U.S. has proposed to the North via a diplomatic channel... to hold working-level talks this week,... but the North is yet to respond.
"It seems the U.S. contacted the North, but there has been no reply."
Sources say the U.S. wants the talks to take place no later than next week.
The U.S. has told the North that the location can be anywhere the North wants.
Pyeongyang, Sweden, and the truce village of Panmunjeom are all viewed as likely venues.
If the talks do take place, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun will be meeting his new counterpart Kim Myong-gil for the first time.
Kim used to be the regime's former ambassador to Vietnam.
The main agenda will be how the two sides should define 'denuclearization' and its end state... as well as what the U.S. could offer in return to the North's entry step a nuclear freeze.
While the North remains unresponsive to Washington's suggestion to meet, Pyeongyang is upping its criticism of the South.
The regime's propaganda website Uriminzokkiri expressed dissatisfaction over Seoul's view that inter-Korean talks should be determined considering the results of the North Korea-U.S. talks.
It said such a view is far away from the two's agreement to autonomously improve bilateral relations.
Oh Jung-hee, Arirang News.