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N. Korea agrees to hold working-level talks at Panmunjom

South and North Korea on Saturday agreed to hold working-level talks at the truce village of Panmunjom to prepare for a Cabinet-level meeting between the two divided countries, officials here said.

The working-levels talks are now set for 10 a.m. Sunday at the Freedom House, an administrative building in the southern side of the joint security area that sits on the inter-Korean border, said the Unification Ministry officials.

The two Koreas have already agreed to hold a Cabinet-level meeting in Seoul on Wednesday, the first of its kind since 2007.

North Korea earlier had proposed its border city of Kaesong as a venue of the working-level talks but South Korea on Friday counter-proposed the truce village as a meeting place, which North Korea accepted on Saturday.

The North's letter of acceptance for the working talks was conveyed to Seoul through a Red Cross phone line reopened a day earlier, more than three months after it was cut off by North Korea amid rising cross-border military tensions, the officials said.

North Korea will be represented at the Sunday meeting by thee director-level officials, they said, quoting the North's message.

Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae and other high-level government officials convened a strategy meeting later in the day to set the agenda and other key procedural matters for the Sunday's meeting, the officials said.

When it proposed the government-level talks with South Korea earlier this week, North Korea suggested that both sides discuss a wide-range of issues, including reopening a shuttered joint industrial complex, resuming cross-border tours and reunions of separated families.

The two Koreas, which remain divided since 1945, fought a bloody three-year war in the early 1950s.