SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - North and South Korea ended their first working-level military talks in two years Thursday with no progress as the meeting stumbled over the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on Pyongyang, Seoul's Defense Ministry said.
A team of international investigators concluded in May that a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan warship near the two Koreas' western disputed sea border in March, killing 46 sailors. The poorly marked western sea border, drawn by the United Nations at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, is a constant source of tension between the two Koreas.
On Thursday, South Korea pressed North Korea to immediately admit to and apologize for the sinking and to punish those responsible, the ministry said after the talks in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula.
North Korea responded that it cannot accept the result of an international investigation and reiterated its long-standing demand that its own investigators be allowed to examine the results in South Korea.
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