North Korea says South Korea proposed a series of inter-Korean summit talks during a secret meeting last month.

The spokesman for the North’s National Defense Commission made the claim Tuesday in an interview with the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang.

The spokesman said that during the May ninth contact in Beijing, South Korea proposed three rounds of inter-Korean summit talks: the first in late June, the second in late August, and the third next March.

The KCNA said the South also proposed a ministerial-level preparatory meeting in late May to arrange the summit talks. The report said the secret meeting was attended by three South Korean officials --- the chief of policy at the Unification Ministry, a senior official at the National Intelligence Service, and a presidential security aide. The report did not disclose the North's delegates in attendance.

The spokesman also said South Korea demanded the North's apology for the sinking of South Korea's Cheonan naval vessel and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, breaking the South's alleged earlier promise on which he did not elaborate.

The spokesman said that when the North rejected the demand, the South "begged" the North to issue a compromise statement that the North would not have to consider an apology but would still seem like an apology for the South.

The spokesman repeated the North's claim that it has nothing to do with the sinking of the South Korean corvette and that the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island was done in self-defense.