NK says Seoul offered summit talks

North Korea said on Wednesday the South Korean government last month proposed holding a series of summit talks.

A North Korean spokesman told state news agency KCNA that the proposal was offered during a secret meeting on May 9. Seoul offered holding three rounds of summit meetings in late June, August and next March, it added. Seoul also proposed a ministerial-level meeting in late May to prepare the events.

Seoul officials have not confirmed the North’s claim.

Inter-Korean contacts were brought to a standstill following North Korea’s deadly attacks on South Korea’s naval warship and its border island last year.

“Seoul begged for our concession” during the meeting attended by senior security officials from both sides, said the spokesman for the North’s National Defense Commission, the top governing body of the communist country.

He said North Korea rejected Seoul’s demand for apology over the incidents.

Desperate Seoul officials then asked the North to make a compromise that “could look like an expression of apology” to help end a chill in inter-Korean ties, he said.

(Herald Online)