The two Koreas are holding official high-level talks for the third day at the truce village of Panmunjeom in a bid to ease the current military tension.
 
The presidential office's national security chief, Kim Kwan-jin, and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo began their second round of talks from 3:30 p.m. Sunday with the North's Director of Korean People’s Army General Political Bureau Hwang Pyong-so and Workers' Party Secretary Kim Yang-gon.
 
The overnight discussions are continuing Monday evening for more than 26 hours as the two Koreas are trying to find a way out from the current showdown at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). 
 
Presidential Spokesman Min Kyung-wook told reporters Monday morning that tense negotiations are continuing amid a grave security situation on the Korean Peninsula. While not disclosing details of the current discussions, the spokesman called for caution against possible influence by the media.  
 
At the closed-door meeting, the South Korean delegation is said to have demanded the North apologize over the recent land mine explosions at the south side of the DMZ and its artillery firing across the border.
 
The North, on its part, asked the South to halt its DMZ propaganda broadcasts, which the South Korean military reactivated for the first time in eleven years in retaliation for the mine explosions in early August.
 
The two sides are known to have also discussed a broad range of issues during the meeting, including reunions of families separated by the Korean War, lifting the South’s May 24 sanctions against the North, and resuming tours to the North’s Mount Geumgang resort.
 
The two sides began talks on Saturday in the first official high-level inter-Korean talks in a year and a half. The overnight meeting continued for over ten hours, beginning approximately one hour following the North's deadline after which it pledged to launch military action unless the South suspends its psy-ops.
 
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.
 
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.