U.N. Command, N. Korea end rare meeting over ship sinking

Yonhap News ^ | 7/15/2010 | Kim Deok-hyun

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Military officers from the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) and North Korea ended a rare meeting Thursday, officials said, the first such meeting since the March sinking of a warship blamed on the communist country.

"The meeting ended at around 11:30 a.m.," said an official at the UNC. The official said he had no information on the results of the meeting that lasted about one and a half hours, adding they will be announced later in the day.

The colonel-level meeting was aimed at arranging talks of general-grade officers between the two sides for discussions on the sinking, which a Seoul-led multinational investigation concluded in May was caused by a North Korean torpedo attack. Pyongyang has denied responsibility for the attack and threatened that any punishment would lead to war.

The meeting that was originally scheduled for Tuesday was abruptly called off by the North just before it was set to begin for what it cited as "administrative reasons." Later that day, the North proposed to reschedule the meeting to Thursday, and the UNC accepted the offer.