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DPRK leader Kim Jong-un

SEOUL. – South Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will hold a dialogue between high-ranking officials today, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said yesterday. Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Eui-do told an emergency Press briefing that the two Koreas have agreed to hold the high-level talks from 10am today local time in the Peace House, the South Korean side of the border village of Panmunjeom.

Kim Kyou-hyun, first deputy chief of the presidential national security office and former first vice foreign minister, will lead the South Korean delegation composed of officials from the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, the Unification Ministry and the Defence Ministry.

The DPRK delegation will be led by Won Dong-yon, deputy head of the United Front Department of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
The vice ministerial-level officials from both sides will discuss overall inter-Korean affairs, with no specific agenda being selected in advance, Kim said, noting that the agenda was expected to include the agreed family reunion being implemented without a hitch and the regularisation of the reunion.

Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to hold the reunion of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War from February 20 to 25 at the DPRK’s scenic resort of Mount Kumgang.

It would be the first high-level, inter-governmental talks between the two Koreas since South Korean President Park Geun-hye took office in February last year.

The DPRK is expected to demand cancellation of the joint annual military exercises between Seoul and Washington, while bringing on the agenda the resumption tour to the Mount Kumgang resort in the DPRK’s southeast coast. The tour, launched in 1998, was halted in July 2008 when a South Korean female tourist was shot dead by a DPRK solider after venturing into an off-limit area.

Last Thursday, Pyongyang reiterated its call for the cancellation of the South Korea-US annual military drills, saying that dialogue and the rehearsal for war of aggression can never be compatible.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said on Monday that combined forces of South Korea and the United States will conduct the “Key Resolve “ and “Foal Eagle” war games from February 24 to April 18 as planned. -Xinhua.