The talks are a fresh attempt at dialogue between the rivals, which have all but cut off ties since 2010, when a South Korean navy ship was destroyed by a torpedo that Seoul said was sacked from a North Korean submarine.
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This latest policy announcement has leaked out of the secretive state as North Korean officials have been engaged in talks in the border village of Panmunjom with their southern counterparts.
Thursday’s talks in Panmunjom will try to avoid a repetition of that failure by thrashing out an agenda, a venue and such protocol issues as who should attend the full-fledged dialogue.
Although any dialogue between the two Koreas is generally welcomed as a step in the right direction, precedent suggests it is still too early to hope for any significant breakthrough.
The two countries threatened war against each other last summer over land mine explosions that maimed two South Korean soldiers.
The tours are a source of badly needed hard currency for the cash-strapped North. In 2008, they were suspended by the South after a tourist was shot dead by a North Korean guard.
The drill utilized K-9 self-propelled artillery launchers despite North Korea’s warning on Sunday that it would respond “mercilessly” should the South Korean live-fire drill push through near the tense border.
The US restricts such activities because the same technologies could be used to produce nuclear weapons and fears that supporting South Korea’s enrichment ambitions might send the wrong signal to North Korea, which is developing its own nuclear weapons programme.
Later that year, the North bombed an island in South Korea, killing four people. South Korea’s top priority is holding regular reunions for war-separated families but Pyongyang, as widely expected, insisted Seoul resume tours to its Mount Kumgang resort.
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In freezing temperatures and light snowfall, South Korea held a state funeral for former president Kim Young Sam, whose 1992 election victory brought a formal end to more than 30 years of military rule.
