By ALASTAIR GALE
Aug. 23, 2015
SEOUL—Talks between North and South Korea to end a military standoff ran through the night and into Monday, with Seoul accusing Pyongyang of trying to increase its leverage by deploying large numbers of submarines and artillery.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye indicated that negotiators had made little progress in defusing tensions, issuing a fresh call on North Korea to apologize for attacks earlier this month that sparked this latest crisis between the Cold-War rivals.
“We need a clear apology and measures to prevent a recurrence of these provocations and tense situations,” Ms. Park told her top aides during a Monday meeting, her office said. She added that Seoul intended to continue anti-Pyongyang broadcasts over loudspeaker across the border that have angered North Korea’s government.
Adding to tensions, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that around 70% of Pyongyang’s submarines were away from their bases in an unusually large deployment. North Korea has also doubled its artillery strength near the border since Friday, a ministry spokesman said.
Force levels are high in South Korea, too, as Seoul and Washington stage their annual summer military drills with around 80,000 troops. On Saturday, South Korea and the U.S. flew fighter jets close to the border in a simulated bombing run.
A spokesman for South Korea’s presidential office said “tough negotiations” were continuing between the top advisers of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and Ms. Park at the border outpost of Panmunjom.
The meeting began Saturday evening, shortly after North Korea had set a deadline for Seoul to cease the border broadcasts or face shelling from its artillery. The dialogue was requested by Pyongyang in an apparent effort to avoid a military confrontation, which the North would almost certainly lose.
While few outsiders expect an outbreak of large-scale fighting, a breakthrough at the talks appears to hang on Pyongyang doing something very rare: acknowledge it is the source of conflict.
North Korea denies planting land mines thatmaimed two South Korean soldiers earlier this month, or firing shells days later that were met with return fire from South Korea. Both sides have since threatened an escalation.
Since it started the Korean War by invading South Korea in 1950, North Korea has consistently denied being the aggressor against its southern neighbor. Pyongyang’s official account of that war is that it began with an invasion from South Korea.
Since then, North Korea has routinely either denied involvement in various attacks, cited provocation, or, if evidence is given that it started an attack, declared the evidence is fake.
“At most, they will say that the hostile policies of the other side gives them the right to do something,” said Victor Cha, a former director for Asian affairs at the White House’s National Security Council.
South Korean forces patrolled Yeonpyeong Island, near the border with North Korea, on Sunday. PHOTO: YONHAP /ASSOCIATED PRESS
Seoul’s leaders have taken a tougher line with North Korea since two major attacks on South Korea in 2010 killed 50 people.
South Korea’s lead negotiator in the current talks, National Security Adviser Kim Kwan-jin, is known as uncompromising in his stance on North Korea issues. Many outsiders expect he will demand a clear North Korean apology and a commitment to end provocations.
However, North Korea may only be willing to go as far as pledging mutual future restraint to avoid conflict, said Chun Young-woo, a predecessor of Mr. Kim as national-security adviser under the previous South Korean president.
“They’ll say something like ‘We didn’t do this but let’s all be more careful,’ ” said Mr. Chun, who has also represented South Korea in multinational talks with North Korea on its nuclear program.
The precedents for a breakthrough aren’t good. High-level talks between the two Koreas over the years have often turned into marathon sessions and produced few clear agreements. Compromises have been rare. In 2013, one round of talks broke down into a physical scuffle.
South Korean officials, right, met with North Korean representatives, left, in the village of Panmunjom on Saturday. PHOTO:YONHAP/REUTERS
With progress appearing slow in the latest talks, the spokesman for South Korea’s military criticized Pyongyang’s move to deploy most of its submarines as a “two-faced” effort to increase pressure on Seoul.
North Korea has around 70 Romeo-class submarines based on 1950s-era Soviet technology, according to South Korea’s latest intelligence assessment.
Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert at the International Crisis Group in Seoul, said that North Korea may also want to move the submarines away from bases where they can be more easily located and attacked. “And if you need to use them, it’s much better for them to be at sea where they are more difficult to detect,” he said.
South Korean officials said propaganda broadcasts were continuing from 11 loudspeaker systems along its border with North Korea. The loudspeakers broadcast criticism of Pyongyang’s regime, as well as messages about democracy and even pop music.
The speaker systems are each turned on for around 10 hours a day. North Korea strongly objects to the broadcasts because they are a breach of the information blockade it tries to maintain to prevent its people wanting to challenge its dictatorship.
Write to Alastair Gale at alastair.gale@wsj.com
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