9 June 2013 Last updated
at 05:00 GMT
Korean officials
hold key talks at Panmunjom
Kevin Kim in Seoul
says there is "cautious optimism", as well as questions, over North
Korea's agreement to the talksOfficials from North and South Korea are holding their first government-level talks in more than two years.The talks are taking place at Panmunjom, a military compound in the demilitarized zone between the two countries.
The meeting comes after months of rising tension and war-like gestures from both sides.
They culminated in the suspension in April of all activity in the Kaesong joint commercial zone.The zone, which is seen as a symbol of North-South co-operation, had run successfully just inside North Korea for more than eight years.
With tensions between the two countries easing, South Korea invited the North to high level talks in Seoul, but Pyongyang said it wanted lower-level discussions first.
The BBC's Kevin Kim in Seoul says the South Korean delegation hopes to negotiate plans for ministerial-level talks later this week.
At the end of the morning session, a spokesman for the South's Unification Ministry said the two sides had discussed technical issues for the future ministerial meeting.
"The atmosphere of today's meeting... was such that the talks have gone smoothly without any argument," Kim Hyung-suk told reporters in Seoul.
The South's three-person delegation - led by the director of the Unification Ministry - left Seoul just before 08:00 (2300 GMT Saturday) for Panmunjom.
Ties between the two Koreas deteriorated earlier this year in the wake of the North's nuclear test on 12 February.
Pyongyang withdrew its workers from Kaesong in April, apparently angered by tightened UN sanctions in the wake of the nuclear test and annual South Korea-US military drills.
Around 53,000 North Korean workers are employed at the Kaesong factory complex by more than 120 South Korean factories.
The zone is a key source of revenue for the North and the biggest contributor to inter-Korean trade.
Last Thursday the North offered talks with the South on the resumption of operations and said it would reconnect a Red Cross hotline if Seoul - which had been seeking such talks - agreed.
The talks closely follow a summit in California between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Both leaders agreed that North Korea had to denuclearise and that neither country would accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said on Saturday.
China is seen as a key ally of Pyongyang.
Vocabulary
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Phonetic
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Meaning
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Culminate
|
/ˈkʌlmɪneɪt /
|
[intransitive] culminate
(in/with something) (formal) to end with a particular result, or at a
particular point.
ทำให้ถึงจุดสูงสุด
For
example
a gun battle
which culminated in the death of two police officers.
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Unify
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/ˈjuːnɪfaɪ /
|
to join people,
things, parts of a country, etc. together so that they form a single unit.
for example
The new leader
hopes to unify the country.
|
Atmosphere |
/ˈætməsfɪə(r) /
|
1 the atmosphere [singular] the mixture of gases that
surrounds the earth.
For example
the upper
atmosphere
|
Deteriorate
|
dɪˈtɪəriəreɪt /
|
to become worse
For example
Her health
deteriorated rapidly, and she died shortly afterwards.
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