Yonhap also reported that North Korea military had mobilized around 20 hovercraft around the western maritime border, citing unnamed military sources.
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This change in schedule is raising speculation that it will be another long night for the South and North Korean delegations.
A peaceful resolution to a tense inter-Korean standoff looked uncertain Monday, with North Korea still apparently preparing for war despite entering a third day of talks with South Korea at their border village of Panmunjom.
Although it has not been officially announced what has been agreed, it is thought the two camps shook hands on plans that would see and end to the threat of war. The U.S. has also been talking to the South Koreans to try to encourage them to deescalate the situation, the officials said.
The announcement came after South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Monday said that without a clear North Korean apology for the mine attack that maimed two soldiers, the anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts that infuriate the North would continue. 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. Days after the incident, the South began broadcasting anti-DPRK propaganda through loudspeakers across the DMZ, something not done by either side since 2004.
Pyongyang is threatening a concerted military attack unless Seoul switches off banks of loudspeakers that have been blasting high-decibel propaganda messages into North Korea for the past week. 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.
“Otherwise, this government will take appropriate steps and continue loudspeaker broadcasts”. Pyongyang had denied it planted the mines or started the exchange of fire Thursday.
It remained unclear how the talks in the DMZ would pan out.
“I hope that from now on, (both sides) sincerely implement the agreement and build trust through dialogue and cooperation in order to build new inter-Korean ties that meet the people’s expectations”, South Korea’s lead negotiator, National Security Adviser Kim Kwan-jin, told reporters.
At the same time as it was sending top envoys to talk to the South, the secretive regime was also pumping out its notorious brand of ominous-sounding propaganda.
North and South Korea wrapped up marathon talks Tuesday with an agreement aimed at defusing a crisis that had pushed the two rivals to the brink of armed conflict.
The United Nations, the United States and the North’s lone major ally, China, have all called for calm. Music breaks featured all-military orchestras – there were no children or civilians playing.
“There will be no retreat in the face of North Korean threats”, Ms Park said, promising “stern retaliation” for any further provocation.
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US and South Korean reconnaissance planes and naval vessels searched on Sunday off the east and west coasts of the Korean peninsula for the submarines. In this situation there are few countries in the world that talk to North Korea, so we expect that the Russian Federation will be able to persuade North Korea and tensions will subside.
