Date set for inter-Korean talks

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North and South Korea have agreed to resume ministerial talks later this month, following a nuclear disarmament deal reached on Tuesday.

Officials meeting in the North Korean border city of Kaesong agreed to hold the meeting on 27 February.

The talks will pave the way for South Korea to resume sending food and fertiliser to the impoverished North.

The talks were frozen and the aid was suspended after the North carried out missile and nuclear tests last year.

Officials from the two Koreas agreed to hold four days of Cabinet-level talks in Pyongyang from 27 February.

"The resumption of the ministerial talks paves the way for consulting and solving major pending issues between the two sides," Lee Kwan-se, South Korea's chief negotiator, said.

"The normalisation of inter-Korean relations will serve as an opportunity for moving reconciliation forward and promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula."

Policy of reconciliation

The BBC's Charles Scanlon says North Korea is likely to use the talks to extract generous economic assistance - starting with a request for an end to the suspension of 500,000 tonnes of food aid.

N KOREA NUCLEAR PROGRAMME Believed to have 'handful' of nuclear weaponsBut not thought to have any small enough to put in a missileCould try dropping from plane, though world watching closely <a class="" href="/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6359217.stm">Cautious welcome for deal</a> <a class="" href="/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6360925.stm">Press hail deal</a>

South Korea - which has pursued a policy of reconciliation with the North - appears ready to accommodate its nuclear neighbour for now, in the hope that further incentives will eventually persuade Pyongyang to give up its weapons, our correspondent adds.

On Tuesday a deal was reached during six-nation talks in Beijing, in which Pyongyang agreed to freeze part of its nuclear weapons programme.

Under the agreement, Pyongyang pledged to close its Yongbyon reactor within 60 days, in return for 50,000 metric tons of fuel aid or economic aid of equal value.

The North will eventually receive another one million tonnes of fuel oil or an equivalent when it permanently disables its nuclear operations.

The US agreed to begin the process of removing North Korea from its list of terror states and establish diplomatic relations. Japan will also discuss normalising relations with the North.