High-level Korea talks resume

The relations got even worse a few years ago when a South Korean warship was sunk.

High-level officials from both countries met on Saturday and held talks for almost 10 hours, adjourning shortly before sunrise Sunday.

Officials have not publicly commented on the discussions, and there is no word on whether the negotiations are making any progress, or how long they will continue.

Its state-run news media, reporting on the talks, did something it had not done for several years, raising hopes for the border meeting: It referred to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea, instead of using the North’s standard reference to “South Korean puppets”.

Seoul and Washington were reviewing the possibility of bringing in “strategic” U.S. military assets, South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said, without elaborating.

It has also been reported that the North has doubled the strength of frontline artillery forces since the talks began on Saturday evening.

An official from South Korea’s presidential Blue House said after midnight that the talks were still going on, and that the delegates were taking a break.

“Eight million adolescents’ hearts are burning with the determination to take revenge (against the South)”, a report on the Rodong Sinmun, the daily of the North’s Workers’ Party, said.

Talks between North Korea and South Korea on how to lower tensions continued into the early hours of Monday, as Kim Jong Un stepped up the mobilization of his forces. Instead, officials from both countries are holding a meeting in an attempt to prevent the situation from escalating any further. An angered North Korea fired artillery rounds with the South earlier this week, which led to a rare exchange of fire between the two sides. “North Korea can choose the time, the place and the method by which they can provoke us, and all we can do is to remain watchful”.

A man sits under a propaganda banner in Pyongyang, North Korea, August 23, 2015.

South Korean National Security Adviser Kim Kwan-jin (R), South Korean Unification Minister Hong Yong …

The standoff is the result of a series of events that started with the explosions of land mines on the southern side of the demilitarized zone between the Koreas that South Korea says were planted by North Korea. Analysts in South Korea also believe the North fears the South’s broadcasts could demoralize its front-line troops and inspire them to defect.

Truckloads of soldiers singing martial songs can occasionally be seen driving around the city, and a single minivan with camouflage netting was parked near the main train station for a time as the talks with South Korea began Saturday and are set to resume later Sunday. And although the two governments are still technically at war (with last week’s exchange of artillery fire the latest reminder), it does appear that reunification is once again on the minds of some Koreans.

Saturday’s emergency meeting was the first high-level inter-Korean dialogue since February of 2014. Seoul’s Unification Ministry has been seeking to deliver to the North the list of some 60,000 South Korean family members who claim to have their loves ones in the North.

“He can speak with the authority of Kim Jong Un“.

On Friday, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff sent a message to its North Korean counterpart promising strong retaliation against any kind of North Korean attack, while warning that the North will have to bear all responsibilities for such retaliatory actions.