South Korea And North Korea Agree To High-Level Talks

South Korea and North Korea agreed Saturday to hold their first high-level talks in nearly a year at a border village to defuse mounting tensions that have pushed the rivals to the brink of a possible military confrontation.

The meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. Seoul time (5 a.m. ET) in Panmunjom, would come 30 minutes after the deadline set by North Korea for South Korea to dismantle loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda at their border. North Korea has declared its frontline troops are in full war readiness and prepared to go to battle if Seoul doesn't back down.

The South Korean presidential office said its national security director, Kim Kwan-jin, and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo would sit down with Hwang Pyong So, the top political officer for the Korean People's Army, and Kim Yang Gon, a senior North Korean official responsible for South Korean affairs. Hwang is considered by outside analysts to be North Korea's second most important official after supreme leader Kim Jong Un.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency also confirmed the planned meeting.

The meeting comes as a series of incidents raised fears that the conflict could spiral out of control, starting with a land mine attack allegedly by the North that maimed two South Korean soldiers and the South's resumption of anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts.

An official from South Korea's Defense Ministry, who didn't want to be named because of office rules, said that the South would continue with the anti-Pyongyang border broadcasts until the end of North Korea's deadline, but said a decision had yet to be made on whether to continue with the broadcasts if the high-level meeting goes on as planned.

South Korea had been using 11 loudspeaker systems along the border for the broadcasts, which included the latest news around the Korean Peninsula and the world, South Korean popular music and programs praising the South's democracy and economic affluence over the North's oppressive government, a senior military official said at a news conference, on condition of anonymity.

Each loudspeaker system has broadcast for more than 10 hours a day in three or four different time slots that were frequently changed for unpredictably, the official said. If North Korea attacks the loudspeakers, the South is ready to strike back at the North Korean units responsible for such attacks, he said.

Authoritarian North Korea, which has also restarted its own propaganda broadcasts, is extremely sensitive to any criticism of its government. Analysts in Seoul also believe the North fears that the South's broadcasts could demoralize its frontline troops and inspire them to defect.