South, North Korea Officials To Meet in Bid To Ease Tensions

Attendants at the meeting include Hwang Pyong So, director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean People’s Army, Kim Yang Gon, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the North Korean side and Kim Kwan-jin, chief of the National Security Office and Hong Yong-pyo, unification minister on the South Korean side.

The meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. Seoul time (5 a.m. ET) in Panmunjom, would come 30 minutes after the deadline set by North Korea for South Korea to dismantle loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda at their border.

“Any provocations by North Korea will not be tolerated,” Park told the gathering.

North Korea on Saturday demanded that the South halt the broadcasts or face military action, and on Monday began conducting its own broadcasts.

Ri also claimed that the South made up the stories of the land mine attack and artillery exchange at the border.

It prompted leader Kim Jong-un to order his frontline troops to prepare for battle, raising concerns that the war of rhetoric could escalate into the most serious military confrontation between the two sides in years, despite calls for calm from the China, the reclusive North’s main economic backer. Pyongyang accused the South of inventing a pretext to fire into the North.

The broadcasts were part of a programme of psychological warfare, according to South Korean newspaper Korea Times, to deliver outside news so that North Korean soldiers and border-area residents could hear it. The South responds with artillery fire.

Despite the meeting, the militaries of the rival Koreas are on high alert for a possible clash over these broadcasts.

The latest tensions between the Koreas began earlier this month when two South Korean soldiers were maimed by land mines on the southern side of the rival nations’ heavily armed border.

South Korean amy soldiers patrol on Unification Bridge, which leads to the demilitarized zone, near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, Saturday, August 22, 2015.

On Thursday, North Korea fired several artillery shells at a South Korean border town near the loudspeaker station, relaying the ultimatum to the South on the same day.

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Dongguk university in Seoul said: “South Korea has openly vowed to cut the vicious circle of North Korean provocations, so it can’t manage to walk off with a weak settlement”.

“We are in close touch with our commanders and with our [South Korean] ally, and the United States remains steadfast in its commitments to the defense of its allies and will continue to coordinate closely with the Republic of Korea”, he said.

Four US F-16 fighter jets and four F-15k South Korean fighter jets simulated bombings, starting on South Korea’s eastern coast and moving toward the U.S. base at Osan, near Seoul, officials said.

Many in South Korea are accustomed to discounting North Korea’s frequent threats over the years.