Frustration mounts as talks between the rival Koreas drag on

[webfact]

Frustration mounts as talks between the rival Koreas drag on
ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press
FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — As marathon negotiations by senior officials from the rival Koreas stretched into a third day, South Korea's president said Monday that anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts will continue unless North Korea apologizes for planting land mines that maimed two South Korean soldiers.

The comments by Park Geun-hye suggest both a hard line stance and mounting frustration in Seoul. They also provide a hint at why the talks, which started Saturday evening and whose second session began Sunday afternoon and was still going Monday afternoon, had dragged on.

For the time being, the diplomacy has pushed aside previous heated warnings of imminent war, but South Korea's military said North Korea continued to prepare for a fight, moving unusual numbers of troops and submarines to the border.

North Korea is refusing to apologize for what Seoul says was a land mine attack earlier this month and then an artillery barrage last week. North Korea denies both attacks and demands that Seoul stop the propaganda broadcasts started in retaliation for the land mine explosions.

These are the highest-level talks between the two Koreas in a year. And just the fact that senior officials from countries that have spent recent days vowing to destroy each other are sitting together at a table in Panmunjom, the border enclave where the 1953 armistice ending fighting in the Korean War was agreed to, is something of a victory.

The length of the talks — nearly 10 hours for the first session and more than 18 for the second — and the lack of immediate progress are not unusual. While the Koreas often have difficulty agreeing to talks, once they do, overlong sessions are often the rule. After decades of animosity and bloodshed, however, finding common ground is much harder.

President Park said during a meeting with top aides that Seoul would not "stand down even if North Korea ratchets up provocation to its highest level and threatens our national security."

She said Seoul needs "a definite apology" and a promise that such provocations would not recur.

The decision to hold talks came hours ahead of a Saturday deadline set by North Korea for the South to dismantle the propaganda loudspeakers. North Korea had declared that its front-line troops were in full war readiness and prepared to go to battle if Seoul did not back down.

South Korea said that even as the North was pursuing dialogue, its troops were preparing for battle.

An official from Seoul's Defense Ministry said that about 70 percent of the North's more than 70 submarines and undersea vehicles had left their bases and were undetectable by the South Korean military as of Saturday. The official, who refused to be named because of official rules, also said the North had doubled the strength of its front-line artillery forces since the start of the talks Saturday evening.

South Korean military officials wouldn't confirm or deny but seemed to cast doubt Monday on a Yonhap news agency report, citing unidentified military sources, that said North Korea had moved toward the border about 10 hovercraft used for landings by special operation forces in the event of a war. Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said the truth is "a bit different" than what was reported but wouldn't provide further details.

The standoff started with the explosions of land mines on the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone between the Koreas that Seoul says were planted by North Korea. In response, the South resumed anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, infuriating the North, which is extremely sensitive to any criticism of its authoritarian system. Analysts say the North fears that the broadcasts could demoralize its front-line troops and inspire them to defect.

On Thursday, South Korea's military fired dozens of artillery rounds across the border in response to what Seoul said were North Korean artillery strikes meant to back up an earlier threat to attack the loudspeakers.

The Defense Ministry official said the South continued the anti-Pyongyang broadcasts even after the start of the talks Saturday and also after the second session began Sunday. He said Seoul would decide after the talks whether to halt the broadcasts.

While the meeting offered a way for the rivals to avoid an immediate collision, analysts in Seoul wondered whether the countries were standing too far apart to expect a quick agreement.

South Korea probably can't afford to walk away with a weak agreement after it had openly vowed to stem a "vicious cycle" of North Korean provocations amid public anger over the land mines, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University.

At the meeting, South Korea's presidential national security director, Kim Kwan-jin, and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo sat down with 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. Hwang is considered by outside analysts to be North Korea's second most important official after supreme leader Kim Jong Un.

In Pyongyang, North Korean state media reported that more than 1 million young people have volunteered to join or rejoin the military to defend their country should a conflict break out.

Despite such highly charged rhetoric, which is not particularly unusual, activity in the North's capital remained calm on Sunday, with people going about their daily routines. Truckloads of soldiers singing martial songs could occasionally be seen driving around the city, and a single minivan with camouflage netting was parked near the main train station.

Instead of anxiously awaiting the outcome of the talks, many Pyongyang residents were riveted to TVs in public places to watch the debut of the "Boy General" cartoon show, which has been revamped for the first time in five years at the order of Kim Jong Un.
___

Klug reported from Seoul, South Korea. Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-08-24

[NeverSure]

Strange. The AP doesn't mention the US which has 28,000 troops and a lot of assets in S. Korea. The US appears to be supportive of S. Korea in this and in fact just resumed the joint military exercises with SK despite this. The US has been in talks with SK about moving even more US military assets into the area.

The US has a treaty to defend SK and would be up to its eyeballs if NK attacked.

CNN

Cheers.

[Credo]

Little Kimmy is probably going to strap all his military leaders that he doesn't like on missiles and shoot them at SK. At least lets hope that is all they are armed with.

[IAMHERE]

Don't count out young Kim, he can load his nuks into semi-trailors and truck them down south within days if needed. I'd hope that the South takes any opportunity at all to make sure the north is leaderless after any large scale altercation.

[elgordo38]

Strange. The AP doesn't mention the US which has 28,000 troops and a lot of assets in S. Korea. The US appears to be supportive of S. Korea in this and in fact just resumed the joint military exercises with SK despite this. The US has been in talks with SK about moving even more US military assets into the area.

The US has a treaty to defend SK and would be up to its eyeballs if NK attacked.

CNN

Cheers.

Sounds like a high stakes poker game. I will raise you 20 landmines and 2 submarines. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. On a more serious note the day is coming when the wolf to the north will not be crying wolf. They are both sizing each other up like a pair of Bantam roosters and the North must do something dramatic soon like attacking the south to get the peoples minds off of poverty, starvation and famine.

[wwest5829]

Let me state first, like most of those offering opinions here, that I do not have any studied knowledge of the current political balance in the Koreas. I would venture to surmise that China would still not be too easy with a united democratic Korea on its border. It smacks of adding to the surrounding of China. On the other hand, North Korea has been a real pain in the butt for sometime and appears not to listen to China's advise to not to be so provocative. I would think it would be in neither Chinese or American interests. To have a military conflict in Korea (do keep in mind that this would involve the U.N. As there is no peace treaty ending the U.N. Police action).

I am not sure how the economics of the current corrections might influence political moves if there are some thinking they could have a limited military action to stimulate economic activity. Yeah, I know, does not sound reasonable but ... Well, military spending does seem to stimulate economies, certainly it helps gather political support for the current government's (OK,allowing that many in the U.S. And Europe are growing fatigued by continuous military action in the name of national defense).