Military officers from the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) and North Korea started talks Wednesday on the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship, an official at the UNC said, their seventh meeting since the sinking sharply raised tension on the Korean Peninsula.
Colonel-level officers held the talks at the border truce village of Panmunjom to arrange a general-grade officers meeting for discussions on the March sinking, which is blamed on North Korea, the UNC official said.
A South Korea-led multinational investigation team concluded in May that the Cheonan warship was torpedoed by a North Korean submarine, killing 46 sailors. The North has denied any involvement.
Working contact between North Korea and the UNC has been made since July, but the two sides have failed to make progress on general-level talks as North Korea has continually requested to send its own investigators to verify the results of the multinational probe.
South Korea has turned down the North's demand, saying the sinking should be handled under the framework of the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
The UNC has demanded North Korea set up a task force to jointly assess whether the sinking violated the armistice agreement.
The general-grade talks have served as a way of easing tensions since 1998, according to the UNC.
The UNC, which monitors the Korean War armistice, is led by the top U.S. commander in the South. The U.S. has some 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea.