Anchor: After an exchange of fire across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Thursday, the two Koreas sat down for their first official high-level inter-Korean talks in a year and a half at the truce village of Panmunjeom. The first round of talks continued overnight as the two Koreas are trying to find a way out from the current showdown at the DMZ over the recent North Korean land mine explosions and the South Korean military's retaliatory propaganda broadcasts. The two sides will meet again at 3 p.m. Sunday to narrow gaps. 
Our Kim Bum-soo has more. 

Report: Amid heightened military tension on the Korean Peninsula, key officials from Seoul and Pyongyang met at the truce village between the two Koreas in a bid to avoid an armed conflict. 

The presidential office's national security chief, Kim Kwan-jin, and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo began discussions with the North's Director of Korean People’s Army General Political Bureau Hwang Pyong-so and Workers' Party Secretary Kim Yang-gon at the Peace House on the south side of Panmunjeom from 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

Seoul's presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook told reporters that the two sides continued their talks overnight until 4:15 a.m. Sunday, and they will resume discussions at 3 p.m. to narrow differences. 

Min told reporters that the two sides discussed a broad range of issues, including the recent border tension and ways to improve inter-Korean relations.

The North at 4 p.m. Friday first proposed a meeting between the South Korean security chief, Kim Kwan-jin, and Kim Yang-gon, Pyongyang's point man on inter-Korean issues. The South is said to have responded two hours later, suggesting Hwang, widely regarded as the North's number-two figure, also be present at the meeting. On Saturday morning, the North proposed the current lineup before Seoul accepted the deal.

The meeting is taking place as the two countries vowed military victory in their ongoing showdown in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

On Thursday, the two sides briefly exchanged fire at the heavily fortified buffer zone between the two Koreas as the North launched artillery shells in an apparent bid to threaten the South Korean military's psychological-warfare broadcast operations.

Pyongyang has demanded Seoul remove its loudspeakers along the border region after the South Korean military reactivated its propaganda broadcasts following North Korean land mine explosions on the South side of the DMZ earlier this month. 

The current talks, the first official high level inter-Korean meeting to take place in a year and a half, began approximately an hour after the North's deadline after which it pledged to launch military action unless the South suspends its psy-ops.
Kim Bum-soo, KBS World Radio News.