North Korea snubs South Korea's proposal for talks

North Korea on Saturday rejected South Korea's proposal for talks as mere "wordplay" and insisted Seoul should first scrap military exercises. South Korea called this week for talks with North Korea to ease worsening tensions after the North ratcheted up the pressure on Seoul with a vow to close their common border.
The proposal for dialogue is "nothing more than wordplay" to avoid responsibility for aggravating relations, Rodong Sinmun, the North's ruling party newspaper, said in a commentary. South Korea should first stop its "provocative" war games, which aggravated inter-Korean relations and hurt "the mood of dialogue and peace," it said. It accused US and South Korean troops of staging joint military exercises on the Korean peninsula in preparation for an invasion.
After months of frosty relations, the North this week announced it would shut the border from December 1 in protest at what it called Seoul's policy of confrontation. A total border closure would cripple the Seoul-funded Kaesong industrial complex, a joint project built in the North as a symbol of reconciliation.
More than 32,000 North Koreans work for 83 South Korean-owned factories at Kaesong, which earns the impoverished North tens of millions of dollars a year. The North also closed its Red Cross office in the border village of Panmunjom and cut the organisation's phone lines there. Pyongyang has said it is also protesting Seoul's failure to honour inter-Korean summit agreements in 2000 and 2007.
Minju Joson, the North's government newspaper, on Friday urged South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak to respect the agreements. "Should he try to shift the blame for the deadlocked dialogue on to others as now, instead of doing so, it will further damage inter-Korean relations," it said. South Korea's government said Friday it will resume funding for private aid projects in North Korea.
Seoul suspended the funding for private South Korean groups after North Korean soldiers in July shot dead a Seoul woman tourist at the North's Mount Kumgang resort. Relations soured after conservative South Korean President Lee took office in February.
He promised to take a firmer line with the North after a decade-long "sunshine" engagement policy under his liberal predecessors. The two nations have remained technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended without a peace treaty. The North is also furious at the spreading of propaganda leaflets across the border by Seoul activists, and has previously threatened to expel South Koreans from Kaesong in protest.
Seoul says it has asked activists to stop launching balloons laden with leaflets but cannot legally bar them. In its message on Thursday the South told the North it is trying to stop the leaflets and that it wants to promote joint business projects.