THE rival Koreas have agreed to hold a third summit between their leaders in Pyongyang before the end of September.
The agreement between the two countries’ unification ministers comes amid an ongoing nuclear stand-off between Washington and Pyongyang.
The two sides did not announce an exact date for the summit.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un first met in April in a highly publicised summit and then again in May for more informal talks.
The Koreas said in a statement that they had reviewed ways to set up agreements made at the past summits, during nearly two hours of talks at a North Korea-controlled building in the border village of Panmunjom yesterday.
The meeting between delegations of senior officials from Seoul and Pyongyang comes as experts see slow progress on efforts to disarm North Korea since a June summit between Kim and US president Donald Trump.
Ri Son Gwon, the head of the North Korean delegation, said at the end of the talks that officials agreed on a specific date for the summit in Pyongyang in September, but he refused to share the date, saying he wanted to “keep reporters wondering”.
The South Korean unification minister Cho Myoung-gyon said the two sides will again discuss when the leaders would meet but did not say when.
Cho, the chief of the South Korean delegation, said the two sides also “talked a lot” about international sanctions meant to punish the North for its development of nuclear weapons, but he did not elaborate.
Seoul has been preparing for possible economic collaboration with Pyongyang that could go ahead when sanctions are lifted.
Pyongyang has urged Washington to ease the economic punishments, but the United States says that cannot happen until the North completely denuclearises.
The South Korean envoy said he urged Pyongyang to accelerate its current nuclear negotiations with the US. The North said it was making efforts to disarm, but Cho said there were no new details on those efforts.
Experts say there has been slow progress on those efforts since the Singapore summit.
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