Seoul - North and South Korea on Tuesday began their first talks since the North's shelling of a South Korean island in November as military officers met in a border village.
The colonel-level meeting in the North Korean town of Panmunjom was aimed at paving the way for talks between generals or the defence ministers of the two Koreas on ways to reduce tensions.
Pyongyang proposed the military talks after making several futile previous attempts to lure Seoul back to the negotiating table. All the earlier proposals for negotiations were dismissed by South Korea, which had said the proposals were not serious.
However, it changed its mind in January after its ally the United States and North Korea's only major ally, China, urged both Koreas to talk with one another. Seoul then agreed to discuss potential solutions to the military problems existing between the two neighbours, which are still technically at war after a ceasefire and not a peace treaty ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
The Defence Ministry in Seoul said, however, that for higher level talks to be held, North Korea must take responsibility for November's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island and the sinking of a South Korean warship in March.
Both countries accused the other of firing first in the island attack, and South Korea said the sinking was caused by a North Korean torpedo, but Pyongyang denied involvement.
The two attacks killed 50 South Koreans.
The ministry also demanded that Pyongyang promise that no such incidents would occur in the future.
The artillery attack and sinking increased tensions sharply on the Korean Peninsula, but they had already been poor, worsening since conservative South Korean President Lee Myung Bak took office in February 2008 and took a harder line toward North Korea than his liberal predecessors and as North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il laid the groundwork for his youngest son, Kim Jong-Un to become his successor. - Sapa-dpa