国际英语新闻:Koreas Adjourn Emergency Peace Talks

SEOUL—North and South Korean officials met into the early hours of Sunday in an urgent bid to avert war on the peninsula before adjourning their marathon talks until Sunday afternoon.
 
The high-level meeting began Saturday at the Panmunjom truce village despite a deadline set by Pyongyang, which had threatened military action unless Seoul ended propaganda broadcasts into the communist north and removed banks of loudspeakers it has installed along the border.

The deadline passed without incident - and without the loudspeakers' removal - and the talks began 90 minutes later, at 6 p.m. (local time). Long after midnight, there was no word from either North or South Korea about whether the negotiations were making any progress, or how long they would continue.

In Washington, White House officials said President Barack Obama has been kept up-to-date on the situation in the Korean Peninsula. "As the State Department has said," a spokesman commented, "we remain steadfast in our commitment to our alliance with South Korea, with whom we will continue to coordinate closely."
 
Even without concrete results, analysts say the marathon session has delayed any further military activity and given the two Koreas added time to look for a peaceful end to the current crisis.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye's National Security Adviser Kim Kwan-jin and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo met with their North Korean counterparts at Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, separating the two countries.
 
North Korea’s representatives are Hwang Pyong So, a top official in the Korean People’s Army who is considered to be the country's second most powerful figure after leader Kim Jong Un, and Kim Kyou Hyun, who is in charge of inter-Korean relations for the North.
 
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry has said it will not end its cross-border audio broadcasts into the North until Pyongyang takes responsibility for recent attacks, punishes those responsible and takes action to prevent further provocations.

Military stand-off
 
Despite the high level dialogue, the potential for escalation or miscalculation remains, since both sides are in a state of maximum defense preparedness, ready for the possibility of a major military confrontation.
 
A landmine explosion in the DMZ that wounded two South Korean soldiers on August 4 triggered the current crisis. Seoul accused Pyongyang of planting the explosive devices and restarted cross-border broadcasts denouncing North Korea for the first time in over 10 years. 
 
On Thursday the North attacked a loudspeaker tower in the DMZ with artillery shells, and the South responded with multiple rounds of artillery fire. No damages or casualties were reported, and the North has disclaimed any involvement in either incident.
 
However, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un subsequently increased his nation’s military readiness, declared frontline areas to be in a "quasi-state of war," and set a 48-hour deadline for military action unless South Korea capitulated to the North's demands. "Our military and people are prepared to risk an all-out war, North Korea's Foreign Ministry announced Saturday, "not just to simply respond or retaliate, but to defend the system our people chose."
 
President Park Geun-hye met with her National Security Council and also increased South Korea’s defense posture. "We are closely monitoring the situation," presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook said Saturday. "We are ready to strongly respond to any North Korean provocations."
 
The two countries have technically been at war since their 1950s conflict, which never officially ended in a peace treaty.