South, North Korea hold talks amid war fears

The talks in Panmunjom were led by South Korean national security adviser Kim Kwan-Jin and his North Korean counterpart Hwang Pyong-So – a close confidante of leader Kim Jong-Un.

Min Kyung-wook, Seoul’s presidential spokesman, did not reveal any specifics about Saturday’s meeting, but said they had they agreed to reconvene Sunday afternoon. He left the briefing without taking questions.

North Korea, technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, declared a “quasi-state of war” in front-line areas and on Thursday set the deadline for Seoul to halt its broadcasts.

Earlier Saturday, the South Korean Yonhap news agency said Pyongyang was making preparations for possible military strikes.

Four high-ranking officials will meet at the border truce village of Panmunjon at 6:00pm (0900 GMT), a spokeswoman for the presidential Blue House in Seoul told AFP. “Despite Seoul’s accusations, Pyongyang denies having planted the mines”.

Despite the high tensions, the United States resumed joint war games, known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian 2015, with South Korea on Friday following a brief suspension on Thursday.

The drills, code-named Ulchi Freedom Guardian, began on Monday and run until next Friday.

Outside information is arguably one of the greatest challenges to an authoritarian regime like North Korea’s, which has regularly threatened to respond violently to activists’ leaflet-laden air balloons launched from the South.

“The South will also likely demand the North take responsibility for the landmine attack and apologise – and there isn’t much reason to think that Pyongyang would accept that”.

“That exercise was suspended temporarily, I believe the day before yesterday, in order to allow the U.S. side to coordinate with the South Korean side on the… exchange of artillery“, David Shear, assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, said at a news briefing.

South Korea has resumed the broadcasts along the border for the first time in 11 years in retaliation against North Korea for a recent land mine attack that left two South Korean soldiers severely injured. Analysts had expected this crisis eventually to wind down.

The former South Korean foreign minister urged “the parties to refrain from taking any further measures that might increase tensions”, via spokesperson Eri Kaneko said. Still, North Korea’s unpredictable nature keeps tensions high.

Radar in South Korea is reportedly monitoring at least two mobile missile launchers in the North, while intelligence also indicates that the North has deployed field 76.2mm artillery within range of South Korea’s loudspeakers. After the artillery display, the North accused the South of trying to come up with an excuse to fire at them. No damages or casualties were reported, and it appeared most shells fell in the four-kilometer-wide DMZ separating the two Koreas.