N. Korea agrees to military talks, sending Olympic squad to South (Third Lead)

North Korea on Tuesday accepted Seoul's proposal to hold military talks to reduce tensions and agreed to send a delegation to next month's Winter Olympics in the South, in the most significant thaw in relations between the neighbouring states in years.

Delegates from the two nations met face to face for the first time in more than two years, at the border village of Panmunjom -- known as "truce village" -- in the Korean peninsula's heavily fortified demilitarised zone.

Both sides also agreed to activate cooperation and exchanges through diverse levels of talks, Yonhap news agency reported.

Pyongyang said earlier in the day that it will send a delegation of high-ranking officials and others, including athletes, cheering and performing arts squads, taekwondo demonstration teams and journalists, to the games.

The officials from both sides will hold working-level talks to further discuss details of the North's participation.

The two Koreas also decided to hold military talks to discuss ways to reduce border tensions. Seoul proposed such a meeting in July last year.

"We expressed the need to promptly resume dialogue for peace settlement, including denuclearisation, and based on the mutual respect (the two Koreas) cooperate and stop activities that would raise tensions on the Korean peninsula," said Seoul's Unification Vice Minister Chun Hae-sung.

A military hotline between Pyongyang and Seoul, suspended for nearly two years, was also reinstated, the agency reported.

The North notified the South that it reconnected the hotline on the west coast earlier in the day, according to a South Korean government official. The line will be operating normally starting 8 a.m. on Wednesday.

Pyongyang already restored the border hotline with Seoul last week.

But the two countries were not on the same page on all fronts. North Korea's chief negotiator, Ri Son Gwon, expressed strong discontent over the mention of denuclearisation in context of military talks.

He complained that Chun had presented the hotline development as a result of the latest discussions. Ri said that had already been agreed upon on Wednesday last week.

Also, South Korea's proposal to hold a Red Cross meeting for reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War around the Lunar New Year's holiday was not included in a joint press statement.

The meeting happened after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un extended a rare offer of rapprochement to Seoul in his New Year's Day message. He expressed a willingness to send a delegation to the PyeongChang Olympics and said his country was open for dialogue.

North Korea accepted Seoul's dialogue offer on Friday after the South and the US agreed to postpone their military drills until after the Olympics. It also reopened a long-disconnected border hotline.

The talks came as Pyongyang is under tough international sanctions over its nuclear and missile provocations. It conducted its sixth nuclear test and fired three intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) last year.

--IANS

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