North Korea rejected the recommendations of the Summit

 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea says that South Korean officials offered to hold a summit meeting, if Pyongyang would offer an apology for two military attacks that killed 50 South Koreans last year.

A spokesman for the DPRK said the two sides met secretly in Beijing on May 9th, where Pyongyang rejected the proposal.

It's the latest war of words on the Korean peninsula.

The DPRK's National Defense Commission spokesman disclosed that a secret meeting was held, where South Korea had proposed holding inter-Korean summits in late June, August and March next year, as well as ministerial-level preparatory talks in late May this year.

But as a precondition for bilateral talks, South Korea asked the DPRK to apologize first over the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan and the shelling of Yonphyong Island last year.

The DPRK denies responsibility for the sinking of the warship and says it was acting in self-defense in the Yonphyong attack, after the South test-fired shells into nearby disputed waters.

A KRT news reader said, "We have made it clear there would never be a summit meeting as long as the South maintains a hostile policy and insists the DPRK should abandon its nuclear programme and apologize over the two incidents."

The DPRK spokesman says South Korea "begged" for concessions over inter-Korean summit talks.

However, the South Korean Unification Ministry says that Seoul does not need to respond to Pyongyang's "unilateral" claims that "distort real intentions" of South Korea.

Calling Pyongyang's move "very regrettable," the ministry renewed its call on the DPRK to resume inter-Korean dialogue.

At the beginning of this year, both South Korea and the DPRK said they wanted to ease tension and agreed to negotiations, but subsequent military talks broke down quickly without any progress.

Since then, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak has extended the offer of a summit on a number of occasions, but sticking to the precondition that the DPRK apologize for the two attacks.

DPRK leader Kim Jong-il has held summits with former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in 2000, and with former president Roh Moo-hyun in 2007.

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