North Korea yesterday alleged that the South Korean administration made three efforts to create an inter-Korean summit during secret contacts with Pyongyang on May 9th.

In an interview with Chosun Central News Agency (KCNA), a spokesperson for North Korea’s National Defense Commission said that the secret meeting occurred between North Korean officials and Kim Cheon Sik, the head of policy at the Ministry of Unification, Hong Chang Hwa from the National Intelligence Service and Secretary to the President for International Strategy Kim Tae Hyo.

“They had already arranged the schedule and other points related to the organizing of an inter-Korean summit,” he said.

The South Korean government, he went on, “expected to have a ministerial meeting in late May to prepare for a summit, if the problems of the two incidents (the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island incidents) was solved, declare an agreement there, then hold a first round inter-Korean summit at Panmunjom in late June, a second one in Pyongyang around two months later and a third one at the time of the Nuclear Security Summit.”

He continued, “They tried to use shallow tricks to get an apology from us for the incidents, insisting that the Cheonan sinking and Yeonpyeong Island shelling are a mountain which both sides should overcome wisely in order to improve inter-Korean relations.”

“As we asserted that it made no sense to apologize for an unrelated incident and a fair measure in self-defense, they entreated, ‘Please take just one step back,’ and suggested a compromise plan to be released to the world, which doesn’t look like an apology from North Korea’s view while seeming to be an apology from the South’s view.”

“We said there was no need to hold top-level summit talks based on the premise of a nonsensical apology. Then we said ‘go to Seoul right now,’ but they tried to carry on, saying that there was not much time left for the Lee Myung Bak administration, and it would be more advantageous for us to work with the conservatives than the progressives.”

“They said, ‘At the very least, express some sense of regret for the two incidents. Let’s meet in Malaysia again and deal with this. We can then quickly arrange and execute summit talks,’ even offering us bribes without hesitation. However, they only got humiliated as we stood firm,” he continued.

“The puppets,” he concluded, “said, ‘The South is complicated, unlike the North. If the information from these secret contacts is shared in the South, then it won’t be good so keep it a secret. Since no one knows about this with the exception of Minister of Unification Hyun In Taek, the director of the NIS, the President’s executive secretary and the people here, it must be kept secret.”