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. <\/p>\n
In an interview with Chosun Central News Agency (KCNA), a spokesperson for North Korea\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey had already arranged the schedule and other points related to the organizing of an inter-Korean summit,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The South Korean government, he went on, \u201cexpected 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.\u201d <\/p>\n
He continued, \u201cThey 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.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAs we asserted that it made no sense to apologize for an unrelated incident and a fair measure in self-defense, they entreated, \u2018Please take just one step back,\u2019 and suggested a compromise plan to be released to the world, which doesn\u2019t look like an apology from North Korea\u2019s view while seeming to be an apology from the South\u2019s view.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe said there was no need to hold top-level summit talks based on the premise of a nonsensical apology. Then we said \u2018go to Seoul right now,\u2019 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.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThey said, \u2018At the very least, express some sense of regret for the two incidents. Let\u2019s meet in Malaysia again and deal with this. We can then quickly arrange and execute summit talks,\u2019 even offering us bribes without hesitation. However, they only got humiliated as we stood firm,” he continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe puppets,” he concluded, “said, \u2018The South is complicated, unlike the North. If the information from these secret contacts is shared in the South, then it won\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019s National Defense Commission said that the secret meeting occurred between North Korean officials and Kim Cheon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":15556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n