North and South Koreas have high-level meeting to strengthen ties

Seoul 11 ​​Ten (EFE) .- Representatives of high level of South Korea and North Korea held on Friday a long meeting in the North Korean city of Kaesong to seek ways to improve bilateral relations and retrieve projects in common.

Delegates from the two Koreas met for more than seven hours in a first round, which began at 10:30 (South Korean time, 23:30 Thursday GMT), and after an interval returned to the negotiating table at 18:15, informed agency "Yonhap" in Seoul.

The meeting should end only at dawn, no content details have been revealed so far.

The Deputy Minister of Unification of South Korea, Hwang Boo-gi, and the deputy director of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of North Korea, Jon Jong-su, lead the delegations.

The second bilateral high-level meeting this year is part of the agreement signed on August 25, the first dialogue between the first ranking officials from Seoul and Pyongyang to end a dangerous episode of military tension that sparked war fears in Peninsula Korea.

Representatives of the two countries have established the objective of continuing the dialogue to improve substantially the always contentious bilateral relations and open a phase of lasting and stable peace.

Although neither side has revealed details about the agenda of today's meeting, the expectation is that Seoul put on the table a proposal to hold new meetings of relatives separated by the Korean War (1950-53), like what happened in October that allowed nearly 200 families return to see after six decades without contact.

Representatives of North Korea, in turn, could seek ways to recover the tourism project of Mount Kumgang, which allowed South Koreans traveling to a hotel in the neighboring country, which was suspended in 2008 after a North Korean soldier killing shot a southern tourist.

Relations between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war for six decades have been marked in recent years by continuous cycles of conflict and strain.

The August agreement created hopes to end this situation and open a stable of understanding stage, although in South Korean society there is some skepticism about the possibility that this is achieved.