South, North seek to defuse tension

South Korean National Security Office chief Kim Kwan-jin, right, and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo, second from right, shake hands with their counterparts Hwang Pyong-so, left, and Kim Yang-gon during their meeting at the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, Saturday. After 10-hours of fruitless negotiations Saturday, the four resumed dialogue the following day. / Courtesy of the Ministry of Unification

Seoul, Pyongyang hold 2nd round of high-level talks

By Jun Ji-hye

The stand-off between the two Koreas entered a crucial phase Sunday as a second round of high-level talks were held following negotiations that continued through the previous night to defuse mounting tension.

Four high-level officials held marathon talks for about 10 hours from 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the truce village of Panmunjeom but did not reach any agreement. They adjourned the first meeting at 4:15 a.m. Sunday, and resumed it at 3:30 p.m. the same day.

Presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook said Seoul’s National Security Office chief Kim Kwan-jin and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo met with Hwang Pyong-so, director of the general political department of the Korean People’s Army, and Kim Yang-gon, director of the United Front Department in charge of cross-border affairs.

Despite the dialogue, the North maintained its "quasi state of war" posture, readying its 76.2-millimeter artillery near the border and moving about 50 submarines from their bases, according to the Ministry of National Defense, Sunday.

Experts expressed cautious optimism that the two sides may reach an agreement to ease the tension.

But they said the trickiest part will be to elicit an apology from the North for landmine explosions inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ), which maimed two South Korean soldiers.

They said the likelihood of Pyongyang issuing a direct apology is not very high, considering that the repressive state has never accepted the South’s demand for an apology after the former’s deadly torpedoing of the South Korean Navy frigate Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors.

Just as it did following the 2010 sinking of the naval vessel, the repressive state has been denying responsibility for the mine explosions, saying that the South is attempting to entrap the North without concrete evidence.

Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korean studies professor at Dongguk University, said, “It will be difficult for both sides to accept every demand they make. The meeting will be successful if the South achieves half of its demands.”

Kim said the North is likely to make an indirect, abstract apology, for example, by vowing to comply with the Korean War Armistice Agreement and ease military tension in the DMZ.

“Then, the North will probably demand that the South suspend loudspeaker propaganda broadcasting,” he said. “The meeting would be successful to some extent if the two sides agree to schedule another round of high-level talks in the future.”

Park Chang-hee, a professor at Korea National University, agreed in part with Kim.

“Although the North denied its responsibility for the mine explosions and shelling of the South’s western border, Pyongyang seems to be in stuck in a bad situation,” he said. “So, I want to cautiously raise the possibility of the North making a kind of abstract apology.”

After the first round of talks wrapped up, presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook told reporters that the two sides discussed “a wide range of topics” concerning measures to resolve the latest state of affairs and to improve inter-Korean relations in the future.

Citing the fact that the spokesman mentioned “a wide range of topics,” analysts also expect the two sides to have been discussing other pending issues such as the resumption of reunion events for war-separated families, the lifting of the May 24 sanctions imposed following the sinking of the Cheonan, and the resumption of the South’s tour program to Mount Geumgang in the North.

In addition, the North might have demanded that joint Seoul-Washington drills be suspended, watchers noted. Such an analysis came as North Korea's state-run newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, argued Wednesday that conducting Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG), a joint Korea-U.S. military exercise, amounted to a declaration of war.

Tension on the divided peninsula has been heightened after the South resumed loudspeaker propaganda broadcasting on Aug. 10 after confirmation that three North Korean-made wooden box antipersonnel landmines exploded on Aug. 4 in the South-controlled area of the DMZ, when eight South Korean soldiers were on a regular patrol there.

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