The two Koreas and UN troops agreed on Monday to withdraw arms and remove guard posts in the border village of Panmunjom this week, the South Korean Defense Ministry said, in the latest step in the rapidly improving relations between the two countries.
The three sides held a second round of talks in Panmunjom to discuss ways of disarming the border, in implementation of an inter-Korean agreement reached at Pyongyang last month.
The announcement came amid US fears that the inter-Korean military initiative would undermine defense readiness and come without significant progress on North Korea's pledge to disarm, Reuters reported.
The two countries are looking to remove 11 guard posts within a radius of one kilometer of the demarcation line on their border by the end of this year.
They also intend to remove all firearms from the joint security area in Panmunjom, reduce the number of troops stationed there to 35 on each side of the line in accordance with the Armistice Agreement, and exchange information on their surveillance equipment.
The three parties agreed at Monday's meeting to remove firearms and guard posts by Thursday and to conduct a joint inspection tour in the next two days, the ministry said.
The two sides began clearing mines around the area under the agreement, and today we announced the completion of the demining operation in their talks with the United Nations Forces Command.
The two Koreas are theoretically at war because the Korean war ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty, but relations have improved considerably over the past year.
The US-led leadership has supervised the demilitarized zone since the end of hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War.
