Korean Talks End Without Agreement - Wall Street Journal

SEOUL—Midlevel military officials from South and North Korea ended two days of talks Wednesday without agreeing to higher-level discussions, closing for now a slim opening they had created to discuss a flare-up of tensions over the past year.

The outcome wasn't surprising. Statements from the two countries over the past month showed they held vastly different goals for the meeting, and they took several weeks just to negotiate its particulars.

Kim Tae-Hyung/European Pressphoto Agency South Korean Col. Moon Sang-Kyun, left, and North Korean Col. Ri Seon-Kwon walking briskly to their meeting Wednesday

But the prospect of no further talks leaves the U.S., China and other countries in a quandary over how to proceed with North Korea.

The U.S. watched the proceedings for signs that North Korea was willing to discuss difficult issues, which could make it worthwhile for Washington to re-engage with Pyongyang diplomatically. Asked later about the development, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, "We'll just continue to evaluate what unfolds going forward, but clearly, this was an important opportunity for North Korea to demonstrate its sincerity."

China, North Korea's closest ally, is believed by many outsiders to have pressured it into talking. Beijing is thought to have become angry over Pyongyang's belligerence, most notably after its attack on a South Korean island in November.

Military talks between the rival Korea's stall, dealing a setback to efforts to restart international aid-for-disarmament talks. Video courtesy of Reuters.

North Korea's access to China's economic support may hinge on its ability to demonstrate it isn't going to engage in more tension-raising behavior, said Dan Pinkston, Korea analyst at International Crisis Group in Seoul. "The key question is will this be perceived by the Chinese as a legitimate and sincere effort by the North to reconcile with the South?" Mr. Pinkston said.

The talks, held between colonels of the two sides who had met before, most recently in September, were designed to set conditions and talking points for a meeting of higher-level officials later this month or next. But after the colonels met on Tuesday, a difference was clear. South Korea said it was seeking a ministerial-level meeting while North Korea only wanted deputy ministers to meet.

Yonhap/European Pressphoto Agency The two colonels started Wednesday's talk with a shake but ended without an agreement.

Also, South Korea wanted North Korea to acknowledge—and move toward some form of apology for—its attacks on the South last year, including the Nov. 23 artillery barrage of Yeonpyeong Island, which killed four people, and the March 26 sinking of a patrol ship, which killed 46. Both incidents happened in the area of a maritime boundary that North Korea disputes.

North Korea's representatives at the talks on Tuesday said that South Korea's insistence on talking about those matters amounted to a rejection of the importance of discussions. On Wednesday, North Korea again criticized the South for focusing on the attacks, the South said. North Korea's representative also repeated the country's oft-stated line on the attacks: that it wasn't involved in the sinking and that the island bombardment was the South's fault.

In a statement after the meeting broke up, South Korea's defense ministry said, "We kept our position that we are willing to hold a high-level military talk if North Korea accepts our agenda and level of official."

North Korea on Thursday Asia time issued a lengthy statement blaming South Korea for the collapse of the talks and said it didn't feel any need to meet again. "South Korea pretends to be interested in talk with us, but in their minds they are not," the statement said.

In early January North Korea began a campaign to promote inter-Korean talks, which it officially proposed later in the month. But from the start, its purpose for such discussions was at odds with South Korea's. North Korea's state media repeatedly stated that the talks should "promote the national reconciliation and unity and hasten independent reunification," a phrase that to Pyongyang means control of the South by the North.

That notion is considered ridiculous in the South. But because North Korean officials rarely want face-to-face discussions, South Korea grabs most opportunities, even when little is expected to be achieved. Last week, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak described this week's meeting as merely a test of North Korea's "seriousness for dialogue."

— Jaeyeon Woo contributed to this article.

Write to Evan Ramstad at evan.ramstad@wsj.com

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Google Executive in Egypt is Released - Wall Street Journal

(See Corrections and Amplifications item below.)

Google Inc. executive Wael Ghonim has been released from government custody in Egypt after disappearing during the massive protests that have rocked Egypt for two weeks, ending a tense wait over the whereabouts of one of the rallying symbols for the anti government movement.

Google, Inc. Wael Ghonim

The silence around Mr. Ghonim, who vanished 10 days ago, broke late Monday evening, when a one-line message was sent from his Twitter account, @ghonim: "Freedom is a bless that deserves fighting for it."

The message set off a wave of cheering on Twitter. Google later confirmed his release with a tweet of its own — "Huge relief—Wael Ghonim has been released" — and a friend of Mr. Ghonim's said the executive was safe and unharmed at home with his family.

Mr. Ghonim, Google's marketing manager for the region, had been involved with Internet-based activists mobilizing opposition to the regime, and after his disappearance became a rallying symbol for the young demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Many suspected he had fallen into the hands of Egypt's feared security services, but there had been no confirmation. Then Sunday evening, his brother Hazem said people who met yesterday with Egypt's new vice president, Omar Suleiman, had brokered his release.

Monday brought a tense waiting game. Mr. Ghonim's family was expecting him to be released around 4 p.m. Cairo time. The U.S. State Department said it had received confirmation of the release, but four hours later, Mr. Ghonim's relatives said they had yet to be contacted regarding his whereabouts.

Members of Mr. Ghonim's family spent the early evening in Tahrir Square, the area in downtown Cairo that has become the symbolic heart of the protest movement and the spot where Mr. Ghonim was thought to have been arrested. Multiple news outlets had erroneously reported that the executive was being taken there shortly after 4 p.m., the time at which the prime minister had announced he would be released.

Many details of Mr. Ghonim's disappearance are still unknown. Friends and political activists who know Mr. Ghonim suspect that the executive was seized on Jan. 28 in the downtown square after he joined thousands of others protesting for the ouster of President Mubarak.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights estimates that at least 1,275 people have been detained by police since the protests began. Most have been released, lawyers at the center and other human-rights groups say. Those who remain in jail are considered key targets of the Egyptian security services, according to human rights lawyers.

A group of elder Egyptian statesmen who have opened negotiations with Mr. Sulieman to press for constitutional and political reforms told the government that Mr. Ghonim's release was critical to prove to the protesters that the government's promises to enact reform were sincere.

"There's a huge gap of mistrust among the youth in Tahrir towards the government. We told the vice president that Wael and all people who have been detained for expressing their political opinions must be freed," said Naguib Sawiris, an Egyptian billionaire who has taken a lead role within the negotiations.

It remains unclear what role, if any, Mr. Ghonim played in organizing the Jan. 25 protest movement itself, the largest Egypt has seen in more than 30 years. However, he played a prominent role in online activism in the months ahead of the protests which have forced the resignation of Egypt's government and historic political concessions from the autocratic president.

Corrections & Amplifications

Wael Ghonim is head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa for Google Inc. In addition, the company doesn't have a head office for the Middle East region. An earlier version of this story incorrectly said he was Google's top executive in the region and incorrectly described Google's Dubai office as the company's regional headquarters.

Write to Nour Malas at nour.malas@dowjones.com, Margaret Coker at margaret.coker@wsj.com and Keith Johnson at keith.johnson@wsj.com

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