Two Korea talks end without agreement

SEOUL, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- The two-Korea preliminary talks at their border truce village in Panmunjom broke down Wednesday with no agreement, South Korean officials said.

A South Korean defense ministry spokesman said the North's delegation "unilaterally walked out of a meeting room," Yonhap news agency reported.

The latest colonel-level talks were designed to prepare the ground for senior level military discussions for calm on the Korea Peninsula where tensions have risen since the North's deadly shelling of a South Korean island last November, its nuclear threats and the sinking of a South Korean war ship nearly a year ago in which 46 sailors died.

Wednesday's talks ended without even fixing a date for the next round, Yonhap news agency reported.

"The talks ended as of around 2:40 p.m., and no agreement was reached," South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.

"The talks failed to narrow differences over the agenda for a high-level meeting," he said.

Prior to the talks, the South had been demanding an apology from the communist country for the Yeonpyeong Island shelling and the ship sinking which it blamed on the North, and also a promise that such acts will not recur.

Yonhap, quoting officials involved in the latest talks, said the North Koreans refused to meet these demands and instead wanted to discuss a comprehensive agenda on easing military tensions and sought to push the South's two preconditions to the higher level meeting.