The Inter-Korean ministerial meeting scheduled to take place on Wednesday and Thursday has been canceled. According to the South Korea government on Tuesday, the meeting was canceled due to a disagreement on participants and head of representatives between both sides. Spokesperson for the Ministry of Unification Kim Hyeong-seok said that as soon as the expert-level talks ended, Seoul urged Pyongyang to submit a list of participants of the ministerial talks. However, Pyongyang wanted both sides to decide on the participant list. According to the initial suggestion from South Korea, South Korea’s Minister of Unification Ryoo Kihl-jae will lead South Korean representatives to join the talks and suggested Pyongyang to assign the Head of United Front Department of the ruling Workers’ Party Kim Yang-gon to lead the delegation. Pyongyang stressed that only one high-level authority is enough. However, at 1pm (local time) on Tuesday, Seoul assigned Vice Minister of Unification Kim Nam-sik to be head of representatives. Meanwhile, Pyongyang chose General Secretary of North Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee to be head of representatives. North Korea immediately protested Seoul’s choice of head of representatives. Before unilaterally canceling talks, Pyongyang warned Seoul that it would not send representatives to South Korea if the head of representatives was not a minister.