Two Koreas hold high-level talks

North and South Korea held their first high-level talks in seven years at a border village on Wednesday, a potential signal that Pyongyang wants better ties and the resumption of lucrative cooperative projects.

Seoul officials said the meeting was requested by North Korea, which has launched a recent charm offensive after raising tensions last spring with repeated threats to fire nuclear-tipped missiles against Seoul and Washington.

The request for a meeting is the latest in a series of conflicting signals coming from Pyongyang that included an abrupt cancellation of an invitation for a U.S. envoy to visit. Later this month, the two Koreas are scheduled to hold reunions of families separated since the 1950-53 Korean War, for the first time in more than three years.

Wednesday's meeting began with no fixed agenda, but South Korea wanted to discuss ways to make the reunions run smoothly and whether to pursue them regularly, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry, which is responsible for ties with North Korea.

The two sides wrapped up a morning session Wednesday, but there was no word on what was discussed in the closed-door meeting in the border village of Panmunjom.

The North is likely to have repeated its demand for the South and the United States to scrap joint military drills due to start later this month, which it says are preparations for an invasion. But outside analysts say it's unlikely that North Korea will halt the reunions this time because it needs improved ties with South Korea to help attract foreign investment and aid.

"For the North, if it comes back with an accomplishment in terms of improved South-North ties, it will mean a better atmosphere for Kim Jong Un to visit China and a justification to pursue high-level talks with the United States," Cheong Seong-chang, an expert at the Sejong Institute outside Seoul, told Reuters.

Kim is believed to be seeking a visit to China, Pyongyang's ally and main benefactor, to reinforce his legitimacy as leader. In his early 30s, Kim took power when his father died suddenly in 2010.

South Korea has so far dismissed North Korea's recent proposals for a series of measures that Pyongyang says are needed to ease tensions, saying the North must first take nuclear disarmament steps and show how sincere it is about its stated desire to improve ties.

Wariness in Seoul is still high because of a weeks-long barrage of threats and provocations last spring from Pyongyang after international condemnation of its third nuclear test. Pyongyang, which has repeatedly vowed to expand its nuclear arsenal, is trying to build nuclear-armed missiles that can reach the continental U.S., but most experts say the country has yet to master the technology needed to mount an atomic bomb on a missile.

Last month, the top U.S. intelligence official said that North Korea has expanded the size of its uranium enrichment facility at its main nuclear complex and restarted a reactor that was used for plutonium production before it was shut down in 2007.

The last high-level meeting between the Koreas took place in 2007, according to the Unification Ministry. Nuclear envoys met in 2011 on the sidelines of a regional security forum in Indonesia, but since then, ties have become increasingly bad. Last June, plans to hold a high-level meeting fell apart because of a protocol dispute over who would represent each side.

Wire services