Seoul offers high-level talks with North Korea

South Korea has proposed to North Korea a high-level dialogue Oct 30, Seoul's unification ministry said Wednesday.

A unification ministry official told Xinhua that South Korea sent the proposal Monday, offering to hold the dialogue at Tongilgak, an administrative building on North Korean side of the truce village of Panmumjom.

The notice was delivered under the name of Kim Kyou-hyun, first deputy chief of the Presidential National Security Office who led the South Korean delegation during the first round of high-level talks in February.

North Korea is yet to respond to the proposal.

On Oct 4, Pyongyang agreed to the second round of senior-level inter-Korean dialogue during the sudden visit of three North Korean officials for the closing ceremony of the Incheon Asian Games.

North Korea said that South Korea can pick a date for the talks between late October and November.

The two Koreas held the first high-level talks in February after South Korean President Park Geun-hye took office in February 2013.

Since then, no senior-level dialogue has been held.

Tensions escalated on the Korean peninsula after the two Koreas exchanged fire near land and sea borders last week, but the high-level talks were expected to be held as the first inter-Korean military talks in nearly four years were held earlier in the day.

Military officials from both sides held the "closed-door" meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom, but no agreements were made during the talks.