South and North Korea held a 'secret' high-level military talk for the first time in seven years on Wednesday amid tensions following a series of shoot-outs at the borders.
"The inter-Korean general-level military talks were under way from 10am at the truce village of Panmunjon," South Korean official Yonhap News Agency quoted a parliamentary source as saying.
The source was further quoted as saying that the Seoul government was unwilling to officially confirm the meeting because "the North does not want to make it public."
The defence ministry or the unification ministry have made no official comment about the talks and there are no details available on who attended the meeting and what issues were on the table, the agency said.
This, however, comes after Re. Park Ji-won of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy said earlier in the day that the two Koreas were to meet "to discuss such issues as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) and South Korean civic groups' anti-Pyongyang campaign of propaganda balloons."
Another source confirmed the information about the talks adding that the agenda would include "how to relieve inter-Korean military tensions that have been heightened recently," something that indicates the two sides would include talks about the recent exchange of fire along the border.
Last week, South and North Korean patrol boats briefly exchanged fire after a North Korean naval vessel violated the NLL, a internationally accepted maritime border in the Yellow Sea. Three days later, North fired anti-aircraft machine guns at balloons that contained anti-Pyongyang sentiments, flown from the Southern border. The two sides traded machine gun fire after some shots landed south of the border.
The two sides last held working-level military talks in February 2011 and general-level talks in December 2007, Yonhap said.
