Upcoming talks between North Korea, South Korea already in jeopardy

(Image credit: Song Kyung-Seok-Pool/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Just a week after agreeing to renewed, high-level talks with South Korea later this fall, North Korea backtracked on that plan, saying the meetings were "all but scrapped," The New York Times reports.

Anti-Pyongyang activists sent balloons filled with leaflets decrying North Korea's government across the border on Friday, prompting troops on the Northern side to open machine-gun fire on South Korean troops, who responded in kind.

North Korea's official media agency released a statement on the incident on Saturday, criticizing the South for not stopping activists, and comparing the leaflets to "psychological warfare." North Korea added that relations with the South were "disintegrating into catastrophe," and that for any scheduled talks to still take place, South Korea would have to stop the activists from further leaflet campaigns.

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Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.