The talks at the truce village of Panmunjeom were apparently still underway after 8 a.m. Monday. According to the South Korean Unification Ministry, the talks restarted at 3:30 p.m. Sunday after nearly 10 hours of discussions that began early Saturday evening and lasted until early Sunday morning.
Kim Kwan-jin, chief of the National Security Office at the South Korean presidential office, and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo are meeting with Hwang Pyong So, director of the General Political Bureau of the North’s Korean People’s Army, and Kim Yang Gon, a secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party.
Well-informed sources said Sunday that the North’s representatives in the talks are demanding a halt to the South Korean military’s anti-communist propaganda broadcasts, while the South insists that the North must first accept responsibility for land mine blasts that seriously injured two South Korean soldiers.
North Korea on Thursday set a 48-hour deadline for Seoul to stop the broadcasts via loudspeakers along the border or risk military action. The 5 p.m. Saturday deadline passed without incident.
South Korea resumed the broadcasts last week for the first time in 11 years in retaliation for the land mine blasts earlier this month on the South’s side of the demilitarized zone.
On Thursday, South Korea said it fired back a volley of artillery shells after the North fired shells in anger over South Korea’s resumption of the broadcasts.
Meanwhile, North Korea boasted through its official media Sunday that the country’s enemies would be destroyed in “just one battle” if hostilities resume on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea “has made full preparations for any sort of war to be chosen by the enemies and rounded off the most perfect operation plan for destroying the enemies in just one battle,” the Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an article, according to the Korean Central News Agency.”
South Korea says its armed forces remain at the highest state of alert and are ready to sternly and immediately retaliate against any attacks by North Korea.
Kyodo
24/8/15
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