PYONGYANG/SEOUL, May 16 (Xinhuanet) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and South Korea resumed working-level talks on Monday in the DPRK, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)reported.

    The inter-Korean talks, reopened in the southern border city of Kaesong after a 10-month suspension, were attended by two delegations led by Kim Man-gil, deputy director of the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland from the DPRK, and Rhee Bong-jo, South Korea's vice-minister of Unification, the report said.

    The KCNA said the DPRK proposed a joint participation in ceremonies in Pyongyang that will mark the fifth anniversary in June of the historic inter-Korean summit in 2000.

    During the talks, Kim "referred to a series of issues in making sure that the talks provide the north and the south with a sure guarantee for implementing the June 15 joint declaration and bringing about a thaw in the present frozen inter-Korean relations and positively improving them," said the report.

    The DPRK urged South Korea to "reflect on its wrong acts of creating abnormal situations," such as the measure of forbidding civilian delegation's visit to Pyongyang to pay homage to President Kim Il-sung last year, and "give assurances that such things would not occur again."

    Kim also asked South Korea to "take practical steps such as abolishing the 'National Security Law' and stopping joint military exercises targeted against fellow countrymen with a view to creating conditions for resuming dialogues at different levels including north-south ministerial talks as early as possible," the KCNA said.

    For his part, according to Seoul-based Yonhap News, Rhee called on the north side to normalize suspended inter-Korean relations and rejoin six-party talks over the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.

    "We told the North Korean side that if it comes out to the dialogue table, we'll make important proposals for practical gains in talks aimed at resolving the nuclear issue," the chief South Korean delegate told reporters.

    Rhee indicated that the planned South Korean proposal would be more favorable to the DPRK than the one Seoul had broached at the third and last round of six-party talks in Beijing last June.

    In the June meeting, South Korea had said it would provide energy and other economic aid if the north side declares its willingness to give up nuclear development and allow outside inspections, Yonhap said.

    At Monday's meeting, Rhee said his country hoped to hold a full-fledged Cabinet-level meeting with the DPRK in June and stage another round of separated family reunions in August.

    South Korea also proposed holding joint ceremonies to mark the opening of two cross-border roads that have recently been built and make a trial run of two cross-border railways that were completed a year ago, he said.

    Economic assistance for the DPRK was also discussed at the meeting. Rhee said South Korea has expressed its willingness to give the DPRK 200,000 tons of free fertilizer. In January, the DPRK had requested 500,000 tons.

    The two-day talks will be concluded on Tuesday. The three-member South Korean delegation traveled to the DPRK by bus after a one-hour drive from Seoul and they were scheduled to return to Seoul via the same route at the end of each day's talks. Enditem