By Kang Hyun-kyung
North Korea alleged Thursday that South Korea ignored its first two offers to hold a high-level military meeting in offering its version of how inter-Korean talks came to be held the day before.
The rare disclosure came as the government here faces criticism for being reluctant to fully disclose information about the talks.
North Korea's Central News Agency reported that the North sent the first fax calling for the talks on Oct. 7 shortly after patrol boats from the two countries exchanged gunfire on the maritime border in the West Sea.
The North sent a second fax containing the same request the next morning as the South didn't respond to its first request, it said.
The North Korean state media said it didn't hear anything from the South again and then sent a third fax in the early morning on Oct. 10.
It said that the South responded after an hour, saying it was willing to hold the talks.
North Korea said it initially proposed the talks between Hwang Pyong-so, the No. 2 man in the North, and Kim Kwan-jin, the head of the National Security Office in Cheong Wa Dae.
But the seniority level was downgraded as Seoul didn't accept this, and notified that instead of Kim it would send Ryu Je-seung, chief of the Office of Planning and Coordination at the Ministry of National Defense.
The meeting was held between Ryu and General Kim Young-chol, director of the North's Reconnaissance General Bureau at the truce village of Panmunjeom near the inter-Korean border, Wednesday.
The closed-door meeting lasted for five hours but the two sides failed to narrow their differences.
During the talks, the North said, it made a four-point proposal to the South _ that the two sides don't cross the "sensitive" maritime line, don't attack each other unless in response to an antagonistic act, revise the rules of engagement and seek dialogue to resolve issues.