Provocations, landmines, troops amassing — just how severe are the current tensions between North Korea and South Korea?
Serious enough that the United States dusted off its war plan for defending South Korea in case the North started a war.
Two U.S. officials told CNN’s Barbara Starr that top commanders have reviewed the war plans and are watching for what U.S. forces would be needed if it comes to war.
That said, the U.S. is also encouraging South Korea to de-escalate the situation, the officials said.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Monday that she’s still waiting for an apology from North Korea as marathon talks between the two sides over a recent spike in military tensions spilled into a third day.
Park said that she wants Pyongyang to apologize for recent provocations, including landmine blasts that badly wounded two South Korean soldiers this month.
“This is a matter of national security and safety of our people,” she said. “This not a matter where we can back down, even if North Korea maximizes its provocations and threatens security like it did in the past.”
The mines, which exploded in the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two countries, set off an antagonistic spiral. South Korea, a key U.S. ally, responded by resuming propaganda broadcasts over the border for the first time in more than a decade, a move that infuriated Kim Jong Un’s regime.
North Korea fired shells over the DMZ on Thursday, apparently aimed at the loudspeakers blaring the messages, setting off a brief exchange of fire.
Pyongyang also set a deadline of Saturday evening for Seoul to turn the speakers off or face military action.
Marathon talks
As the time approached, the two longtime foes announced high-level talks in Panmunjom, an abandoned village in the DMZ that now serves as a site for inter-Korean meetings.
After a break during the day Sunday, the talks resumed that evening and continued through Monday morning and into the afternoon, according to the South Korean government.
Park took a hard stance in her comments Monday, saying the loudspeaker broadcasts would continue unless North Korea apologized for the recent provocations. Pyongyang has denied that it planted the mines or started the exchange of fire Thursday.
It remained unclear how the talks in the DMZ would pan out.
“Tough negotiations between high-level representatives of South and North Korea have been under way for many hours amid the grave security crisis on the Korean Peninsula,” Min Kyung-wook , a spokesman for Park’s office, said Monday, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap.
Pyongyang’s mixed messages
The tense situation highlights the mixed messages Kim’s government gives off during unpredictable bouts of brinkmanship.
At the same time as it was sending top envoys to talk to the South, the secretive regime was also pumping out its notorious brand of ominous-sounding propaganda.
“Let us destroy the warmongering South Korean puppet military!” announced an anchor on North Korean state television as the second round of negotiations between the two sides began Sunday.
That was followed by clips of uniformed young men holding up a sign that read “Death to U.S. imperialists,” followed by them signing a pledge to destroy the United States.
Such scenes are typical on North Korea’s only television channel, but Sunday’s fare appeared to have less variety than usual. Music breaks featured all-military orchestras — there were no children or civilians playing.
‘Depressing regularity’ of skirmishes
Adding to the uncertain backdrop of the talks, North Korea doubled its artillery forces on the front lines and 70% of its submarine units left their bases, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said.
South Korea has warned it will retaliate strongly to any further North Korean provocations.
South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said his country and the U.S., which have held annual joint military exercises, will keep working together as the tensions continue.
“Our position is that South Korea and the U.S. are currently continuously closely monitoring the crisis situation in the Korean Peninsula, and we are flexibly reviewing the timing of the U.S. strategic assets deployment,” he said.
The talks and the tensions have a familiar pattern to them, according to some analysts.
“I see this is as yet another of the small cycles of the skirmishes that we see between North and South Korea that just happens in depressing regularity,” said professor David Kang of the University of Southern California’s Korean Studies Institute.