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Tens of thousands of South Korean and US troops Monday began a military exercise simulating an all-out North Korean attack, as Pyongyang matched Seoul in resuming a loudspeaker propaganda campaign across their heavily-fortified border.

North Korea proposed the talks on Friday, according to South Korea’s presidential office.

South Korea’s Director of National Security Kim Kwan-jin and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo joined the talks, as well as Hwang Pyong-so, the director of the General Political Bureau of the North Korean Army, and Kim Yang-gon, the top official in charge of inter-Korean...

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.

It said a failure to take down the speakers would spark ‘an all-out military action of justice to blow up all means for “anti-north psychological warfare” on the front lines’.

Hwang is considered by outside analysts to be North Korea’s second most important official after supreme leader Kim Jong Un.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Saturday that the Friday speech by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressing deep remorse for Japan’s wartime actions had fallen short of Seoul’s expectations.

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...

North Korea had given the South until 5:00 p.m. Pyongyang time Saturday (0830 UTC) to stop the anti-Pyongyang cross-border broadcasts, which Seoul started up last week following a landmine explosion that wounded two South Korean soldiers.

North Korea has denied any involvement in the mine blasts and threatened “indiscriminate” strikes against South Korean border units unless the broadcasts were halted immediately.

The rival Koreas have resumed cross-border propaganda warfare as North Korea matched South Korea’s loudspeaker campaign with broadcasts of its own that reportedly included criticism of Seoul and praises for Pyongyang.

South Korea has said the two soldiers wounded in the mine explosions were on a routine patrol in the southern part of the DMZ that separates the two Koreas. Pyongyang is demanding they be turned off by Saturday evening.

The saber rattling in the Korean Peninsula escalated Friday as the North threatened military action if South Korea does not stop blaring propaganda from speakers across the border by Saturday.

The two Koreas traded threats on Friday following a brief exchange of fire a day earlier, in a confrontation that experts say carries a risk that the inexperienced North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un will provoke South Korea to launch a major military retaliation.

A Japanese journalist cited in a Washington Post report described the remarks as “unprecedented”, and it has been suggested that the emperor has shown a subtle opposition to Abe’s “aggressive form of pacifism” when it comes to commenting on the...