North Korea Declares State of War.

You will pay for his theater in aid. Fuel is not for free you know.

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ

What in the hell are you talking about? Am I missing something here??

Do you want someone else to say it? All right. Everytime he "has" to move his army there is less money left to feed people. You pay for UN which sends aid so you will pay the bill in a way. Funny huh?
I'm not saying it would be ethical to stop all the humanitarian aid but maybe it's the only way to take care of him without blood.
Turn off the speakers let them go home, turn it on, ship no aid and so on. With no real excuse for the offensive but soon without money and fuel... or vice versa

originally posted by: crazyewok

originally posted by: AceWombat04

originally posted by: Xcathdra

China Xinhua News ‏@XHNews · 6m6 minutes ago
BREAKING: S. Korea, DPRK reach agreement after emergency contact

english.yonhapnews.co.kr...
(URGENT) Inter-Korean agreement to be announced at 2 a.m. by S. Korea's national security adviser

(URGENT) Koreas end marathon talks aimed at defusing tensions, reach agreement

Thank-goodness, if true. That's the best possible news. It will be interesting to see who blinked, and what if anything it cost other than a loss of face. (Unless somehow, they brilliantly did find an out that prevents that. Which would be quite the diplomatic feat.)

Peace.

Yeah best possible news.....until North Korea does kick off and they have the capability to lob nukes long range.

I choose to instead hope that any such conflict can be prevented from ever occurring in the first place. I'm not willing to advocate open warfare at this stage to head off something that may or may not ever take place, personally. But that position is entirely your prerogative, and perhaps you're right. Time will tell.

Peace.

South Korean Announcement

North Korea expresses regret over landmines that wounded South soldiers: statement

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea expressed regret over a landmine incident that wounded two South Korean soldiers this month, the two sides said in a joint statement issued on Tuesday after marathon talks between the rival states aimed at easing tensions.

The statement also said South Korea had agreed to stop anti-North propaganda broadcasts at noon on Wednesday and that the two Koreas would hold follow-up talks in Seoul or Pyongyang to discuss a range of issues on improving ties.

North Korea's state media issued the statement separately.

However, the South's envoy Kim Kwan-jin, who is the chief presidential national security advisor, told a news conference following the talks that it was not the time to discuss holding a summit meeting of the two Koreas' leaders,

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Gareth Jones)

North Korean Announcement

North-South High-level Urgent Contact Held

Panmunjom, August 24 (KCNA) -- A north-south high-level urgent contact which had started at Panmunjom last Saturday ended Monday.
Present there from the north side were Vice-Marshal of the Korean People's Army (KPA) Hwang Pyong So, member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), vice-chairman of the National Defence Commission of the DPRK and director of the General Political Bureau of the KPA, and Kim Yang Gon, member of the Political Bureau and secretary of the C.C., the WPK, and from the south side were Kim Kwan Jin, chief of the State Security Office of Chongwadae, and Hong Yong Phyo, minister of Unification.

At the contact the north and the south had an in-depth discussion of the principled issues arising in defusing military confrontation, preventing conflict and promoting the development of the bilateral relations, and made public the following joint press release:
A north-south high-level urgent contact was held at Panmunjom from August 22 to 24, 2015.
Present there from the north side were Hwang Pyong So, director of the General Political Bureau of the KPA, and Kim Yang Gon, secretary of the Central Committee of the WPK, and from the south side were Kim Kwan Jin, chief of the State Security Office of Chongwadae, and Hong Yong Phyo, minister of Unification.

Both sides discussed the issues of defusing the acute military tension aggravated recently between the north and the south and bettering the north-south ties and made public the following agreement:

The north and the south agreed to hold talks between their authorities in Pyongyang or Seoul at an early date to improve the north-south ties and have multi-faceted dialogue and negotiations in the future.

The north side expressed regret over the recent mine explosion that occurred in the south side's area of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), wounding soldiers of the south side.

The south side will stop all loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the MDL from 12:00, August 25 unless an abnormal case occurs.

The north side will lift the semi-war state at that time.

The north and the south agreed to arrange reunions of separated families and relatives from the north and the south on the occasion of the Harvest Moon Day this year and continue to hold such reunions in the future, too and to have a Red Cross working contact for it early in September.
The north and the south agreed to vitalize NGO exchanges in various fields. -0-

I choose to take this as a positive sign. It suggests that the NK regime is not suicidal or hell-bent on conflict to save face (something which remained to some degree an unknown under its new leadership.) That they were willing to offer regret, the chief concession South Korea sought, even at the risk of losing face, gives me some hope that they remain predictable actors with comprehensible motivations. Which means a lower chance of miscalculation and unpredictable, chaotic acts than might otherwise have been the case.

That a seeming no-win scenario resulted in an accord giving both sides something they wanted is reassuring compared to the alternative scenario of NK being driven more by face and status than by self-preservation in my opinion.

As always, I could be wrong of course.

Peace.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Wondering if the last trick up NK's sleeve is using the newly implemented time zone to trick SK into not ceasing the propaganda speakers at the correct time? NK just changed their time zone a week or so ago.

North, South Korea reach agreement to ease tensions

North and South Korea reached agreement early on Tuesday to end a standoff involving an exchange of artillery fire that had pushed the divided peninsula into a state of heightened military tension.

Under the accord reached after midnight on Tuesday morning after more than two days of talks, North Korea expressed regret over the recent wounding of South Korean soldiers in a landmine incident and Seoul agreed to halt anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts, both sides said.

North Korea also agreed to end the "semi" state of war it had declared. The two sides will hold follow-up talks to discuss a range of issues on improving ties, the joint statement said.

"It is very meaningful that from this meeting North Korea apologized for the landmine provocation and promised to work to prevent the recurrence of such events and ease tensions," Kim Kwan-jin, national security adviser to South Korean President Park Geun-hye, told a televised news briefing.

Pyongyang has previously denied laying the landmines, and in the statement did not explicitly take responsibility for them.

The marathon talks at the Panmunjom truce village inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas began on Saturday, shortly after Pyongyang's deadline for the South to halt its propaganda broadcasts or face military action.

"They both made compromises. South Korea did not get an apology, they got a statement of regret about the injury, which they can spin as an apology," said John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul.

Click link for remainder of article..

a reply to: Vasa Croe

yeah by 30 minutes as a snub to Japan.

While an agreement was supposedly reached we still have the north deploying forces.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: Vasa Croe

yeah by 30 minutes as a snub to Japan.

While an agreement was supposedly reached we still have the north deploying forces.

Yep...but wondering if that played into the decision by them to name a specific time that it would cease. If they "claim" it was not stopped in time then they can start right back up with the war talk.....just has me wondering if that is their play on this....making SK miss the timeline on purpose.

Ah, I had a feeling NK would take advantage of the new wording "apologize for the injuries". NK merely expressed "regret" for the injuries, not admitting to anything. That small difference in the wording now ended up making SK appear very weak.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: Vasa Croe

yeah by 30 minutes as a snub to Japan.

While an agreement was supposedly reached we still have the north deploying forces.

Yep...but wondering if that played into the decision by them to name a specific time that it would cease. If they "claim" it was not stopped in time then they can start right back up with the war talk.....just has me wondering if that is their play on this....making SK miss the timeline on purpose.

International agreements that require a time generally use GMT or CUT times to avoid time zone problems.

So far it is just words.

Have not heard anything about an actual pull back of NK artillery,
subs, or anything other than words...yet.
This came close,and a lot closer than I think a lot of people realize,
to an all out war and until NK pulls back, it still could.

But I am glad that they seemed to have gotten things straightened out.
I just don't trust NK to do anything they say,
actions speak louder than words when it comes to NK.

Looks like so far so good, at least tentatively. I'm still choosing to take all of this as an encouraging sign, unless and until there is compelling reason to suspect otherwise.

The two Koreas also agreed to host the reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War in late September. A separate Red Cross talks will be held early September to organize the reunion meetings.

www.koreatimes.co.kr...

The two Koreas will capitalize on their agreement at high-level talks to "regularly and systematically" hold inter-Korean dialogue, the government said Tuesday.

www.koreatimes.co.kr...

Although, it does appear NK is trying to save face in its own way, at least for domestic consumption:

A top North Korean official said Tuesday the just-ended military crisis on the peninsula must have taught South Korea an important lesson not to cook up a story about provocations by the North.

english.yonhapnews.co.kr...

So they express regret, but still get to maintain that the South confabulated. (While speaking only of "provocations," steering clear of the land mine point specifically.)

Still... as I said, so far, so good.

Peace.

a reply to: AceWombat04

I wonder how much North Korea is being paid to back down.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: AceWombat04

I wonder how much North Korea is being paid to back down.

That's how it has worked in the past!

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: AceWombat04

I wonder how much North Korea is being paid to back down.

I am so sick of that blackmailing regime!! uugh!! This is why they need to bring back sanctioned assasinations.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: AceWombat04

I wonder how much North Korea is being paid to back down.

I wonder how much they'll need next time to do the same.
I also wonder whether Kim can survive his own regime now that he looks pathetically weak to them and basically surrendered on a day significant to NK in recognizing and celebrating their "military first" policy.

He went too far this time, he'll need to go further next time, unless his Generals oust him before then.

SK should not have accepted this. The US and SK should have gotten China on side and taken Kim out when they had the excuse to do so. His posturing should have been taken seriously and it should have been used as an opportunity to deal with NK and get the ball rolling on dismantling the regime and reunifying their countries.

Instead, hundreds of thousands of people in NK will continue to die in their concentration camps while the world does nothing, and NK will continue to develop Nuclear weapons capability until it can aim one at Seoul and continually blackmail the international community.

Within the next ten years we will have no choice but to deal with this regime, the longer we leave it the messier and more complicated it will be.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: AceWombat04

I wonder how much North Korea is being paid to back down.

Definitely something hands for NK to take this route. It must have been worth it to lose face when the entire issue is about pride.

Jude