Pyongyang unilaterally discloses content of secret inter-Korean military talks

North Korea unilaterally disclosed the contents of inter-Korean military meeting that happened Wednesday and the process in which the secret talks were realized.



North’s official Korean Central News Agency published an article Thursday night entitled, “Revealing the truth about the unfair treatment which casts a dark shadow over the improving atmosphere of North South relations,” disclosing the allegedly inappropriate measures of the South Korean towards Pyongyang.



The 9,700-character article said that Pyongyang proposed a meeting with Kim Kwan-jin, chief of the National Security Office and Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so, but the South Korean side refused the proposal. Instead, Seoul sent Lt. Gen. Ryu Je-seung, head of the National Defense Policy Office, as the representative on the southern side, downgrading the talks.



The article said further alleged that it was the South who proposed a secret meeting and then leaked parts of the talks to its news media, while claiming it was the full story.



The two Koreas held a military meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom on Wednesday, and the North’s delegation was led by North Korean Gen. Kim Yong-chol, director of the Reconnaissance General Bureau.



This was the first time in three years and eight months that their military officials sat down at a negotiation table, but the Park Geun-hye administration didn’t announce it in advance and remained tight-lipped on what was discussed afterwards.



A South Korean government official called the article “a means of applying pressure ahead of the second round of high-level inter-Korean talks.”



This marks the first time that Pyongyang has revealed talks that occurred between the two Koreas in such a unilateral manner since the Park Geun-hye administration took place.





BY JEONG YONG-SOO [sarahkim@joongang.co.kr]

