level military talks between North and South Korea were held in June 2004. But negotiations have been on hold over mass defections of North Koreans to the South. Official meetings between the two Koreas resumed in May, and the two have since agreed to a series of new reconciliation moves. Pyongyang routinely condemns the military exercises between Seoul and Washington, which have been conducted annually since 1976, as preparation to invade the communist state. No peace treaty was signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war.
