North Korea's military today abruptly cancelled a rare meeting with the American-led UN Command that had been arranged to discuss the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on Pyongyang.
Military officers from North Korea and the UN Command were to meet at the Korean border village of Panmunjom this morning to discuss sinking that killed 46 South Korean sailors. It would have been the first such meeting since the sinking, which sharply raised tension on the divided Korean peninsula.
The North, however, requested a delay in the talks for "administrative reasons," the UN Command said in a statement. A new meeting time was not immediately proposed.
An international investigation in May concluded that a North Korean submarine fired a torpedo that sank the 1,200-ton Cheonan near the tense Korean sea border in late March. Pyongyang flatly denies it was responsible and has warned any punishment would trigger war.
The UN Command, which oversees an armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953, separately investigated if the sinking violated the truce, though findings have not been disclosed.
Late last month, the command proposed military talks with North Korea to review its findings and initiate dialogue.
The North first rejected the offer, criticising the US for allegedly trying to meddle in inter-Korean affairs under the name of the UN. But it reversed its position last week and proposed working-level talks at Panmunjom to prepare for higher-level talks by general officers on the sinking.
The North Korean military's request means it feels it wasn't sufficiently prepared for the meeting, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean studies. "They may have yet to get Kim Jong Il's approval for their strategy on the talks," he said, referring to the country's leader.
Mr Yang, who expects a meeting to eventually take place, said it will serve a "symbolic" purpose as a venue where North Korea and the US can engage in dialogue and foster an atmosphere conducive to resuming international disarmament talks on the North's nuclear programme.
North Korea and the UN Command launched general-level talks in 1998 as a measure to lessen tension between the sides. If a new round is realised, they would be the 17th of their kind, according to the UN command.
The US stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War, which ended in an armistice that has never been replaced with a permanent peace treaty.
The UN Security Council on Friday approved a statement that condemned the sinking but stopped short of directly blaming North Korea. The next day, the North said it would make efforts to resume stalled disarmament talks on its nuclear programme and conclude a peace treaty that could formally end the Korean War, a sign that the regime could live with the UN Security Council's presidential statement.
US state department spokesman PJ Crowley told reporters yesterday that North Korea must stop provocative actions and show a willingness to abide by past disarmament pledges before the US will agree to resume long-stalled six-nation talks meant to rid North Korea of its nuclear programmes.
"We are not willing to talk for the sake of talking," Mr Crowley said.
Reuters