SEOUL, South Korea — South and North Korea held a high-level meeting on their border on Saturday and agreed to meet again on Sunday, South Korean officials said, apparently easing, at least temporarily, a tense standoff that has prevailed since the countries exchanged artillery fire two days ago.
President Park Geun-hye of South Korea, second from right, visited an army unit Friday in Yongin. The South uses loudspeakers to blare propaganda.North and South Korea on Alert Over Loudspeakers Blaring PropagandaAUG. 21, 2015
South Koreans at a shelter in Yeoncheon County on Thursday. A county official said about 220 people were sent underground.North Korea and South Korea Trade Fire Across Border, Seoul SaysAUG. 20, 2015
South Korean soldiers on patrol near the site of land mine explosions in the Demilitarized Zone last week. One soldier lost a leg; the other lost both.South Korea Accuses the North After Land Mines Maim Two Soldiers in DMZAUG. 10, 2015
“Both sides had comprehensive discussions on how to resolve the current situation and how to improve South-North relations in general,” Mr. Min said. The negotiators agreed to meet again on Sunday afternoon to try to narrow their differences, he said.
North Korea’s state-run news media, reporting on the talks, did something it had not done for several years, raising hopes for the border meeting: It referred to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea, instead of using the North’s standard derogatory reference to “South Korean puppets.”
The agreement to hold the border talks on Saturday came just hours before a 5 p.m. deadline that the North had given the South to stop broadcasting propaganda messages from loudspeakers placed along the heavily militarized border; the talks began shortly after the deadline. The North had threatened “strong military action” unless the broadcasts stopped.
South Korean officials said that Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo of South Korea and Kim Yang-gon, a senior North Korean Workers’ Party secretary in charge of relations with the South, had also taken part in the meeting.
On Thursday, the two Koreas exchanged fire across their border. No casualties were reported, but it was their most serious clash in five years.
South Korean officials said they believed that the North had begun firing as a warning to stop the loudspeaker broadcasts. The South had resumed the broadcasts, a propaganda tactic dating from the Cold War, this month after 11 years, in response to the maiming of two South Korean border guards by land mines that the South accused the North of planting.
The South has said it will not stop the propaganda broadcasts unless the North apologizes for planting the land mines and punishes those responsible. North Korea has denied planting the mines; it has also denied starting the exchange of fire on Thursday, accusing the South of fabricating both episodes.