Propaganda broadcasts to continue unless North Korea apologises for attack
Propaganda broadcasts at North Korea will continue unless Pyongyang apologises for a land mine attack that maimed two soldiers, South Korea’s president said.
Park Geun-hye vowed a hard line and signalled Seoul’s mounting frustration as marathon negotiations by senior officials from the rival Koreas stretched into a third day.
Her strong words help reveal why the talks, which started on Saturday evening, have dragged on.
For the time being, the diplomacy has pushed aside previous heated warnings of imminent war, but South Korea’s military said North Korea continued to prepare for a fight, moving unusual numbers of troops and submarines to the border.
North Korea is refusing to apologise for what Seoul says was a land mine attack earlier this month and then an artillery barrage last week.
North Korea denies both attacks and demands that Seoul stop the propaganda broadcasts started in retaliation for the land mine explosions.
These are the highest-level talks between the two Koreas in a year.
And the fact senior officials from countries that have spent recent days vowing to destroy each other are sitting together at a table in Panmunjom, the border enclave where the 1953 armistice ending fighting in the Korean War was signed, is something of a victory.
The length of the talks – nearly 10 hours for the first session and more than 18 for the second – and the lack of immediate progress are not unusual.
While the Koreas often have difficulty agreeing to talks, once they do, long sessions are often the rule. After decades of animosity and bloodshed, finding common ground is much harder.
