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North Korea says Seoul is at fault for the break down of the dialogue and that it has
no regrets about walking away.
The South Korean government, meanwhile, has expressed its deep regret about the North's
distortion of facts, but said the door to dialogue is still open.
Our Unification Ministry correspondent Hwang Sung-hee has the details. In its first official
reference to the cancellation of Wednesday's inter-Korean government-level talks, Pyongyang
claims that Seoul is entirely at fault for the last-minute reversal.
In a statement released on Thursday, North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification
of Korea said the talks could not take place due to South Korea's deliberate calculation
of sending a lower-ranking official than it had promised.
Regarding South Korea's request for Kim Yang-gon , Director of the North's United Front Department,
Pyongyang said Seoul speaks with no knowledge of North Korea's political structure, as he
is a much higher-ranking official than South Korea's Unification Minister.
The committee said Seoul must take responsibility for the serious consequences the latest incident
will have on inter-Korean relations, and added it has no regrets about the planned government
talks.
In response, South Korea's Unification Ministry said it was highly regrettable that the North's
committee had unilaterally released the content of Sunday's working-level talks and distorted
the facts.
It said that matching the level of the chief negotiators is a sign of mutual respect and
a basis for building trust between the two Koreas when they are trying to bring inter-Korean
relations to a new level.
Nonetheless, the ministry said that it is leaving the door to dialogue open for North
Korea so that it can return to the negotiating table with sincerity and responsibility.
"But any kind of dialogue between the two Koreas doesn't seem to be imminent.
The Unification Ministry says the North did not pick up calls from the South via their
Red Cross communication channel for a second day on Thursday, suggesting that the hotline
has been cut again, just days after it was reopened.
Hwang Sung-hee, Arirang News."