The defense chiefs of South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) concluded their talks here Tuesday after a three-day meeting on security issues and the implementation of the agreement reached at last month's inter-Korea summit.
"Both sides decided to take military measures to put an end to the hostile military relations", the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted an agreement reached during the talks as saying.
The two sides also agreed to take practical measures to prevent clashes in the West Sea (the Yellow Sea) and "to put an end to the present ceasefire system and build a lasting peace mechanism," the KCNA reported.
"They decided to take measures to provide military guarantees for north-south cooperation and exchange," it said.
Meanwhile, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported that both sides didn't achieve a big breakthrough on the disputed maritime border during the talks.
South Korea views the Northern Limit Line (NLL), marked after the 1950-1953 Korean War by the United Nations Command, as the inter-Korean western sea border, while the DPRK has not accepted the concept.
The navies of the two countries clashed in 1999 and 2002 in the NLL waters, which caused heavy casualties on both sides.
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo traveled to Pyongyang on a chartered plane Tuesday for a three-day visit.
The meeting between Kim and his DPRK counterpart, Kim Il Chol, is the first between defense chiefs of the two countries in seven years.
Source:Xinhua
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