SOUTH KOREA’S ARMY CHIEF has resigned in the wake of a property scandal as relations between the South and North Korea remain tense, Al Jazeera reports.

General Hwang Eui-don allegedly resigned after becoming embroiled in a controversy over a property company’s profits.

The country’s defence minister already resigned, after the North shelled an island off the west coast of the peninsula. Four people were killed.

The South, which was running naval exercises on the island at the time, fired back. South Korean citizens demanded retaliation for the attacks, but the North and South have maintained a tense ceasefire since the incident.

North Korea has agreed to China’s request for emergency meetings to reduce tension between the two countries, according to Yonhap News. The talks will focus on the issue of North Korea’s nuclear disarmament. US officials fear a nuclear enrichment plant which the North claims is operational could be rearranged to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

China has been under increasing international pressure to exert its influence over North Korea to ease tension. A Chinese official recently admitted that China wants to see the North and South reunited after WikiLeaks released US cables suggesting that it was leaning towards reunification.