N.Korea offers talks with S.Korea on Winter Olympics art troupe

North Korea has offered talks to South Korea on sending its art troupe to the 2018 Winter Olympics, Seoul's Unification Ministry said on Saturday.

North Korea proposed a working-level dialogue on January 15 in Tongilgak, a building controlled by North Kora in the truce village of Panmunjom, to discuss the issue, Xinhua reported.

The proposal was sent to the South Korean side through the restored hotline in Panmunjom, which straddles the heavily guarded inter-Korean land border.

It was a counterproposal to South Korea's offer on Friday to hold working-level talks on January 15 at the Peace House in the South Korean side of Panmunjom to discuss the dispatch of all delegations from North Korea, including the art group.

North Korea said it will notify South Korea of its proposed schedules for working-level dialogues about other issues such as the dispatch of athletes and cheering squads.

On Tuesday, the two Koreas held senior-level talks in Panmunjom, the first high-level dialogue between the two Koreas in about two years, agreeing that North Korea will join the 2018 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games slated to run from February to March in South Korea's eastern county of PyeongChang.

--IANS

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