The two Koreas are again engaged in a war of nerves against a backdrop of recent military talks, prompting the North to threaten to back out of the planned high-level dialogue and casting a cloud over a long-awaited reconciliation.

Seoul has come under fire for flip-flopping on Pyongyang’s initial offer of a military meeting, and how and why the Wednesday event had been set behind closed curtains, among other issues.

The communist country’s official media argued late Thursday that it had consistently demanded that Kim Kwan-jin, chief of the presidential National Security Office, attend what it calls an “emergency one-on-one contact” with Kim Yong-chol, head of the North’s Reconnaissance General Bureau. Officials at the defense and unification ministries here belatedly admitted to this, after initially arguing that Kim Kwan-jin had never been discussed as the chief negotiator though his name was on a letter as a recipient.

The officials had also claimed that the talks were held behind closed doors in accordance with Pyongyang’s wishes, but again did an about-face following its revelation that the request was first made by Seoul.

A Defense Ministry official defended its position, saying the bottom line is that the sides agreed to closed-door consultations given the “grave agenda,” including a recent exchange of fire near the West Sea border and a “sensitive time frame” ahead of an upcoming round of high-level dialogue. 

“We assess that there is some distortion by the North. We’ve been saying that we did propose a private meeting and the North concurred,” he told reporters on customary condition of anonymity.

The confusion and verbal duels appear to be dampening the burgeoning mood for a thaw following a surprise visit on Oct. 4 to the South by three top North Korean officials ― Hwang Pyong-so, Choe Ryong-hae and Kim Yang-gon ― primarily to attend the closing ceremony of the Asian Games. 

The rare military talks also yielded little progress, with the North remaining unwavering on the issue of its 2010 attacks on the South’s Cheonan corvette and Yeonpyeongdo Island.

Seoul has been demanding an official apology as a prerequisite for any relaxing of bilateral sanctions imposed in the wake of the incidents, which bar cross-border trade, investment, travel and other exchanges.

“We clearly delivered (the message) that (the North) is responsible for the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling on Yeonpyeong. But they stuck to their existing position, expressing no apology or regret,” the official added.

The South is hoping that its unruly neighbor will accept its Monday offer of a second meeting on Oct. 30 between Kim Kyou-hyun, vice chief of the National Security Office, and Won Dong-yon, deputy head of the United Front Department in the North’s ruling Workers’ Party.

However, Pyongyang displayed a grim outlook, lambasting Seoul for sending Ryu Je-seung, deputy minister for national defense policy at the Defense Ministry, as the counterpart of Kim Yong-chol, a four-star general.

The row evokes the last-minute cancelation of high-level talks in June 2013, which resulted from differences over the level of chief delegates.

“The fact that the South dispatched a deputy minister who doesn’t have any authority to the emergency meeting, not the national security chief that we called for, represents a mockery and insult to inter-Korean dialogue,” the official Korean Central News Agency said. “The undeniable reality is that the future of inter-Korean high-level dialogue is at risk.”

Tension is set to rise further as some defector groups plan to launch another batch of balloons containing some 100,000 anti-North Korea leaflets on Oct. 25.

Pyongyang, which deems the activity an “act of hostility,” threatened to shoot them down again in the Thursday dispatch.

On Oct. 10, the North fired machine guns at balloons released by two civic groups, leading the South to shoot back.

No casualties were reported, but calls have since been growing for the government to put a stop to their campaigns, at least in sensitive times, especially after a number of high-caliber rounds were found not only near South Korean border posts but also civilian residential districts.

While maintaining its policy that it will not levy any state-level ban against the flyer campaigns, Seoul requests that the activists exercise “discretion.”

“We regret that the North has threatened to fire aimed shots at our civic groups,” Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol said at a regular briefing on Friday.

“With North Korea making such threats, I hope that the organizations will make a prudent and wise decision so that no concerns occur over the safety of our citizens.”

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)