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By Ankit Panda
North and South Korean officials met at a truce village on the border for a high-level meeting.
Military representatives from both South Korea and North Korea met in the truce village of Panmunjom on Wednesday for the highest level military talks between the two sides in seven years. The meeting has been unofficially confirmed by several sources, but the South Korean government has not acknowledged them as of yet. According to a parliamentary source cited by South Korea’s Yonhap News, “The North does not want to make it public.” The talks come shortly after a high-level North Korean delegation comprising Hwang Pyong-so, Choe Ryong-hae, and Kim Yang-gon visited Incheon, South Korea on an impromptu trip at the close of the Asian Games. It is not known which side initiated the meeting.
While we know that military talks took place, the details of exactly who represented either side or what the agenda was remains shrouded in mystery. One anonymous official told Yonhap that the agenda focused on ”how to relieve inter-Korean military tensions that have been heightened recently” — a fairly narrow objective. Given the recent trip by Hwang and co. at a time when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hadn’t been seen for weeks (he has since reappeared), there is considerable speculation that there could be something significant in the works in inter-Korean diplomacy. Despite positive diplomatic signals, some parts of the relationship remain unchanged. For example, last week, North Korean and South Korean vessels exchanged fire across the Northern Limit Line (NLL) — the de facto maritime boundary separating the two countries. Additionally, after South Korean activists launched balloons containing leaflets across the border, the North retaliated with anti-aircraft and machine gun fire.
Read the full story at The Diplomat