Koreas cooled down, Kim fires officials

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (left) and former NBA star Dennis Rodman watch North Korean and U.S. players in an exhibition basketball game at an arena in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this February 2013 file photo.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (left) and former NBA star Dennis Rodman watch North Korean and U.S. players in an exhibition basketball game at an arena in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this February 2013 file photo.

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has dismissed top officials after a recent standoff with South Korea, state media reported Friday.

In his first public comments on the recent deal struck with South Korea to defuse the border tensions, Kim said leverage provided by the North's nuclear arms program had made the "landmark" agreement possible.

During a ruling Workers' Party meeting, Kim said the agreement put "catastrophic" inter-Korean relations back on track toward reconciliation, according to Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency.

North Korean media gave no reasons for the dismissals, but outside analysts said they may have been sacked because they misjudged South Korea's strong response to land mine blasts that maimed two South soldiers.

The rival Koreas earlier this week threatened strikes against each other before agreeing on measures to reduce animosity. The standoff began after the detonation of the mines, which Seoul said were planted by the North. Seoul responded by resuming propaganda broadcasts critical of Kim's authoritarian rule for the first time in 11 years. Pyongyang then threatened to destroy the South Korean loudspeakers, and Seoul said the rivals exchanged artillery fire at the border.

South Korea switched off its loudspeakers Tuesday after North Korea expressed "regret" that the South Korean soldiers were injured by a mine explosion. The vague agreement allows Pyongyang to continue denying it laid the mines and Seoul to claim that the term "regret" signals an apology.

Kim took credit for the deal in remarks that he made at a meeting of North Korea's Central Military Commission, the state news agency reported.

The North had proposed the border talks "on its own initiative and put under control the situation, which inched close to an armed conflict, thereby clearing the dark clouds of war," Kim was quoted as saying.

The report did not say when the meeting of the military commission, a top decision-making body led by Kim, had been held.

Kim replaced some of the commission's members during the meeting, the report said without elaborating. The dismissals were mentioned in a sentence that also referred to extensive flood damage reported last week in Rason, a special economic zone in the country's northeast.

It was not known whether the dismissed North Korean officials received heavier punishment other than being removed from their party posts. Since taking over after the death of his dictator father, Kim Jong Il, in late 2011, Kim Jong Un has orchestrated a series of executions and purges in what foreign analysts said was an attempt to bolster this grip on power. South Korea's spy service said that, in April, Kim had his defense chief executed for disloyalty.

South Korean officials said they hope the agreement will help improve ties, but the two Koreas have a history of failing to follow through on past reconciliation accords, and their ties have been strained since conservatives took power in Seoul in early 2008.

In an indication that North Korea's hard-line stance hasn't changed despite the agreement, Kim said the deal was achieved not on the negotiating table but thanks to his country's military capability based on its "nuclear deterrent," according to the KCNA. He was quoted as saying the North's military will guarantee peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Also Friday, South Korea proposed to the North that talks be held at Panmunjom on Sept. 7 to discuss arranging reunions of family members separated decades ago by the Korean War. The two countries agreed to resume the reunions, which have been held sporadically over the years, as part of the deal reached Tuesday.

Information for this article was contributed by Hyung-jin Kim of The Associated Press and by Choe Sang-Hun of The New York Times.

A Section on 08/29/2015

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