In the wake of cross-border military talks Wednesday, disputes broke out over the background to the discussions and the proposal for a restart of high-level dialogue.

The plan for the talks came to light that morning, thanks to a news report that a military meeting may take place “as early as today” and the South had already offered a second round of consultations between senior security advisers.

But the unification and defense ministries repeatedly refused to confirm the report, even after the talks had begun at 10 a.m. and a lawmaker had unveiled the timetable, venue and other details of the meeting.

Caving to pressure from the media and the public, the government confessed to the existence of the meeting at about 4 p.m. in a news conference held by Defense Ministry spokesperson Kim Min-seok. Little progress was made on sensitive issues, and there was no plan for a further session, he said.

Seoul said it had covered up the meeting because the North wanted the military talks secret, the agenda was extremely “grave” and the timing “sensitive.”

Yet the claims were contradicted by North Korea.

Late Friday, Pyongyang’s state media released a lengthy article carrying details on the background of the consultations and the negotiations leading up to the meeting. It was Seoul that suggested to meet in secret, it said.

The Defense Ministry countered that the North had “somewhat” distorted the facts, but in essence, it confirmed the North’s claim.

The furor resulted chiefly from the increasing lack of consistency in the government’s North Korea policy.

The Park Geun-hye administration has openly declared that it would maintain its “transparent” approach, ruling out the possibility of any clandestine envoy or meeting with the Kim Jong-un regime.

But to many, such a rule was deemed unrealistic ― or naive at best ― in the first place given the sensitivity of cross-border relations.

The two Koreas had often held closed-door talks in the past. Even ultraconservative former President Lee Myung-bak dispatched an aide to Singapore in 2009 to meet North Korea’s point man on inter-Korean ties and discuss a possible summit with late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

The flip-flopping is deepening confusion within the government. On the day of military dialogue, the Unification Ministry belatedly confirmed that it offered on Oct. 13 a second meeting between Kim Kyou-hyun, vice chief of the National Security Office at Cheong Wa Dae, and Won Dong-yon, deputy head of the United Front Department in the North’s ruling Workers’ Party. The suggested date for the talks was Oct. 30

The revelation immediately drew fire, as it directly defied the ministry’s explanation just a day earlier that it was still exploring options and nothing had been decided about the time frame of any proposal or talks.

On Monday, the Unification Ministry press corps officially lodged a complaint against the agency and Cheong Wa Dae. The protest cited “lying” about the offer, reneging on their “transparency principles” and the structural problem that the ministry, which should be at the center of inter-Korean relations, was being denied its reason to exist, while the presidential office took over the role and without sharing sufficient information.

Spokesperson Lim Byeong-cheol sought to defend the ministry’s position saying he had not known the facts at the time of speaking to reporters. If this is true, it would show a lack of transparency in Park’s North Korea policy.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)