Few expect breakthroughs, but there could be surprises. What makes these negotiations significant is they are part of a broader pattern of inter-Korean meetings and a calendar of dialogue that embraces Japan and the United States just as Pyongyang has introduced some economic reforms.

Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun will head the five-member ROK team, while Kim Ryung-sung, a senior DPRK official, leads Pyongyang's delegation.

The North's delegation is set to fly to the South today and talks will start after noon at a hotel in Seoul.

The sides are expected to issue a joint statement on Wednesday.

The two sides have been bitterly divided since the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce rather than with a peace treaty. They agreed the weekend before last to resume reconciliation efforts and discuss economic and family exchanges as well as military talks.

The North also agreed to send a team to the Asian Games to be held in the South's second-largest city, Busan, from September 29 to October 14. Sports officials will meet in the North for four days starting Saturday to discuss the logistics.

Sandwiched between the ministerial and sports meetings, a DPRK delegation will attend joint events in Seoul on Thursday, the anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945.

The North's Korean Central News Agency quoted a DPRK official as saying the joint event carried "weighty significance."

The last round of ministerial talks in November ended in acrimony over the South's security measures following the September 11 attacks.

(China Daily August 12, 2002)