Less than a year ago, Pyongyang hosted this rally in support of North Korea’s stance against the US. /AFP
The two Koreas marked on Monday their war anniversary in a mood of detente, with Pyongyang dropping its customary anti-US rhetoric and Seoul saying talks have begun on moving the North’s artillery back from the tense border.
Pyongyang’s tightly controlled official media are normally packed with anti-American invective on June 25, when the North launched a mass invasion of the South in 1950.
But this year proved to be a marked exception in the wake of the historic Singapore summit.
In the South, Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said discussions were taking place about relocating Pyongyang’s long-range artillery away from their border.
North Korea is estimated to have around 1,000 artillery pieces along the frontier, threatening much of the South’s capital Seoul only 50 kilometers away.
The North has long accused the US of provoking the 1950-53 Korean War as part of a plan for global domination and blames it for the division of the peninsula, agreed between Moscow and Washington in the closing days of World War II.
A US-led 16-country United Nations force supported the South in the conflict while China backed the North.
“Every year on this day, our army and people row the boat of memories, full of creed and determination to defend the nation,” read a report in the North’s state-run Rodong Sinmun.