North Korea has begun deploying submarines and amphibious vessels to the border with the South as a second night of talks have failed to cool escalating tensions.
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Pyongyang also expressed “regret” for recent mine explosions that maimed two South Korean soldiers, the incident that sparked the standoff.
The talks follow artillery duels last week at the border as South Korea blared anti-Pyongyang propaganda into the North using giant loudspeakers.
Some critics of Pyongyang say it generates crises to remind South Korea and the US that it is there and should be treated as important – and also to keep its own citizenry on high alert.
He said: “Our people and the global society cannot accept North Korea’s offer of compromise through talks without making any apology, punishing persons in charge and promising not to repeat its provocation”.
Meanwhile, a group of anti-North Korea protesters rallied near the border Monday, destroying North Korean flags and calling for strong retaliation for the land mine attack.
The United States quickly welcomed the agreement and the prospect of tensions dropping.
David Shear, the U.S. assistant secretary for defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, told reporters on Friday that the U.S. had suspended, then resumed joint military exercises with South Korea this week after North Korea fired its weapons across the Demilitarized Zone.
The talks happened in South Korea’s Peace Home, simply south of Panmunjom’s often-photographed sky-blue huts, and the identical venue the place lower-level talks between the bitter rivals passed off in February 2014, with out settlement.
More talks are to continue in either Seoul or Pyongyang in the near future, officials said.
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. Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University in Seoul, said the unusually long session was a good sign.
The first high-level talks in nearly a year between South Korea and North Korea have stretched into the early hours of Sunday.
North Korea was reported to have moved more than 50 warships over the weekend.
“I think obviously we’re going to have to see how it plays out”.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un order his frontline troops onto a war-footing on Friday while Seoul warned that it would “retaliate harshly” to any acts of aggression.
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Her comments came amid the ongoing crisis contact between her chief security advisor Kim Kwan-jin and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un’s chief military aide Hwang Pyong So, which has lasted for more than 21 hours from 3:30 p.m. (0630 GMT) Sunday at the border village of Panmunjom.
