Koreas hold first military talks since ’08

SEOUL, South Korea – North and South Korea began their first working-level military talks in two years today, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said.

Officers from the two sides met in the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, the ministry said. They last held such talks in October 2008.

North Korea earlier this month proposed the military meeting to discuss the western maritime border and anti-North Korean leaflets spread by South Koreans.

The poorly marked western sea border, drawn by the United Nations at the end of the 1950-’53 Korean War, is a constant source of tension between the two Koreas.

The navies of the two Koreas engaged in three bloody skirmishes near the area in 1999, 2002 and 2009.