Tensions between the two Koreas continued on Monday as South Korean President Park Geun-hye said that the South would continue broadcasting propaganda across the border unless the North apologized for planting a mine that seriously injured two South Korean soldiers.
Park’s comments come amid high-level meetings between the two sides that stretched into their third day on Monday. The talks began on Saturday evening and ran into the early morning, then reconvened on Sunday afternoon; as of about 3:00 p.m. on Monday, the officials had been at the table for more than 24 hours.
North Korea denies planting the mine that exploded along the two countries’ heavily-guarded border earlier this month and touched off the current crisis, leading Seoul to hold propaganda broadcasts for the first time in 11 years. On Thursday, North Korean troops shot at some of the speakers, leading to a brief artillery volley.
Both sides sent high-level delegations to the talks. The South sent national security chief Kim Kwan-jin, and Hong Yong-pyo, who heads the Ministry of Unification, Seoul’s body for relations with North Korea. Pyongyang sent Hwang Pyong-so, who is regarded as a top aide to leader Kim Jong-un, and Kim Yang-gon, the North’s top official for relations with South Korea.
As the meetings drag on, both sides have put their militaries on high alert. The South’s Defense Ministry said in a briefing on Monday that South Korea and the U.S. are considering deploying a B-52 bomber and nuclear armed submarine to stand battle ready. The South Korean military announced over the weekend that 50 North Korean submarines had left their ports. The North has also used amphibious landing crafts to move special forces near the Koreas’ maritime border on the Yellow Sea, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported Monday.
On Monday the Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s official newspaper, accused South Korea of creating the tensions as a pretext for invading the North.
The loudspeakers are a point of particular contention between the two sides, experts say. They blast information about life in South Korea 24 hours a day at several points along the border. Most North Koreans lack internet and can only access state-approved television and radio.
Experts say that the broadcasts threaten the North Korean government’s efforts to control what information reaches its citizens.
“North Korea is really nervous about the breaking of their information barrier,” said Stephan Haggard, a North Korea expert at the University of California, San Diego. “They see the broadcasts as insults to their deified leader Kim Jong Un.”
When accused by the South, North Korea tends to not apologize for or admit to the provocations. Relations between the two Koreas have still not recovered from 2010, when 46 South Korean sailors died in the sinking of the Cheonan warship. South Korea accused North Korea of torpedoing the ship; Pyongyang steadfastly denied responsibility for the sinking.
Borowiec is a special correspondent.
MORE ON THE TWO KOREAS
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Seeking to ease tensions, North and South Korean officials meet at the border
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un places nation’s border in ‘semi state of war’
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