SEOUL, Aug. 22 (UPI) — High-ranking officials from North and South Korea are meeting at a border town Saturday to defuse tensions that are pushing the rivals closer to military action.
South Korean national security director, Kim Kwan-jin and unification minister Hong Yong-pyo are meeting with North Korea’s Hwang Pyong So, the top political officer for the Korean People’s Army, and Kim Yang Gon, a senior North Korean official responsible for South Korean affairs, at the border truce village of Panmunjom.
The talks are the first high-level discussions between the two countries in about a year and came just hours before a 5 p.m. deadline that Pyongyang had given South Korea to stop loudspeaker broadcasts of propaganda messages along the countries’ heavily militarized border. It also comes after the reported firing of North Korean artillery shells on Friday. Pyongyang accused South Korea of “provocations” because of the “hostile U.S. policy toward North Korea,” a reference to the joint drills Ulchi Freedom Guardian.
Elizabeth Shim contributed to this report.
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