SEOUL, South Korea—After more than 40 hours of talks, North and South Korea pulled back from the brink Tuesday with an accord that allows both sides to save face and, for the moment, avert the bloodshed they’ve been threatening each other with for weeks.
In a carefully crafted, though vague, statement, North Korea expressed “regret” that two South Korean soldiers were maimed in recent land mine blasts Seoul blamed on the North. While not an acknowledgement of responsibility, let alone the “definite apology” South Korea’s president had demanded, it allows Seoul to claim some measure of victory in holding the North to account.
