N. Korea: 'Regret' misread as apology

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea on Wednesday accused South Korea of misreading the two countries' recent agreement on easing border tensions, insisting that Pyongyang's expression of "regret" over the wounding of two soldiers from the South was never meant as an apology.

"They are so ignorant of the Korean language they don't even know the meanings and definitions of Korean words," the North's National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. It warned that inter-Korean relations were "bound to return to confrontation" if the South continued what the statement called its distortions of the deal's meaning.

A South Korean official responded that the two sides should stop splitting hairs over the agreement's wording.

The deal, which was reached Aug. 25 after three days of talks at the border village of Panmunjom, helped defuse a military showdown that seemed to bring the countries to the brink of an armed clash.

Although both governments were quick to claim credit for the deal, some of the wording on the most contentious issues was vague. One such issue was the South's demand that the North apologize for planting land mines that maimed two South Korean soldiers on the border on Aug. 4. One soldier lost both legs, and the other lost one.

The South responded to the episode by using loudspeakers on the border to blare propaganda into the North, a tactic it had not used for 11 years. The North, which denied planting the mines, threatened to attack the loudspeakers. The sides briefly exchanged fire on Aug. 20, with no casualties reported.

In the deal that emerged at Panmunjom, the South agreed to turn off its loudspeakers unless it was provoked again, and the North "expressed regret over the recent mine explosion." South Korean officials characterized that as a face-saving way for the North to apologize.

But in its statement Wednesday, North Korea made explicit that it had not apologized.

"'Regret' is nothing more than expressing sympathy," it said, comparing the gesture to "visiting a hospital patient" to offer condolences and nothing more.

Over the years, South and North Korea have often patched up their differences with vaguely worded agreements that allowed negotiators to return to their capitals claiming a victory. That appeared to have been the case with the Aug. 25 deal.

President Park Geun-hye of South Korea said the accord was made possible because of her government's strong, principled stance. The North's leader, Kim Jong Un, claimed that the South had been forced to sign the deal because of Pyongyang's "military muscle," including its nuclear weapons.

On Wednesday, Jeong Joon-hee, a spokesman for the South's Unification Ministry, said the countries should stop nitpicking over the wording of the agreement. He said both sides should instead focus on talks scheduled for Monday to discuss another commitment in the deal to resume reuniting families that have been divided since the Korean War decades ago.

A Section on 09/04/2015

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