Tuesday 21st August, 2018
Song told a parliamentary defense committee
hearing that South Korea and the DPRK agreed to withdraw a couple of guard
SEOUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua/GNA) – South Korean
Defense Minister Song Young-moo said Tuesday that the military will pull out a
part of guard posts in border areas with the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea (DPRK) on a trial basis as agreed upon at the inter-Korean military
talks.
Song told a parliamentary defense committee
hearing that South Korea and the DPRK agreed to withdraw a couple of guard
posts inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ), which separates the Korean
Peninsula, on a trial basis and then increase the number.
The agreement was
reached during the general-grade, inter-Korean military talks in late July, in
which the two sides also agreed to disarm the Joint Security Area (JSA) inside
the border village of Panmunjom and jointly excavate the remains of fallen
soldiers during the 1950-53 Korean War.
The South Korean defense chief said the militaries of the two sides will
first withdraw guard posts placed less than 1 km from each other, noting that
the closest one is located some 700 meters away from each other.
The withdrawal would be a part of efforts to
implement the Panmunjom Declaration, which South Korean President Moon Jae-in
and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un signed after their first summit meeting on
April 27 in Panmunjom. Moon and Kim agreed to defuse military tensions by transforming
the DMZ into a peace zone and the sea border into a maritime peace zone.
GNA