Left: South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun.   Right: North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

SEOUL (AP)

North and South Korea agreed to resume high-level talks later this month in the first concrete sign of easing tensions on the divided peninsula after the North signed a breakthrough disarmament agreement.

The Cabinet-level talks - the highest dialogue channel between the two Koreas - will be held in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, from February 27 through March 2, according to a joint statement adopted at a lower-level meeting in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.

In another statement yesterday, North Korea's chief nuclear envoy said his country is ready to implement the agreement reached earlier this week on initial steps for denuclearisation during negotiations with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

"The talks went well," Japan's Kyodo News agency quoted North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan as saying on his return home from the China-hosted six-nation gathering.

Under the first phase of the disarmament deal reached in Beijing on Tuesday, North Korea would shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow U.N. inspectors back into the country within 60 days.

In return, it would receive aid equal to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from the other countries participating in the six-party talks.

North and South Korea have held 19 high-level meetings since 2000, but they have been suspended for seven months amid chilled relations following North Korea's missile launches in July and their nuclear test in October.

The two sides "affirmed each other's will to continue developing North/South relations," the joint statement said.

Despite the positive mood, North Korea showed no sign of easing its harsh anti-U.S. rhetoric, with its Number 2 leader ordering all soldiers and citizens to maintain a war mobilisation posture to counter the threat of a U.S. attack.

"We will mercilessly repel the aggressors and achieve reunification by mobilising" in case of an American assault, Kim Yong Nam warned yesterday in a speech to thousands of government and military officials that was carried on state television and monitored in South Korea.

Cabinet-level talks between the two Koreas, which usually serve as a forum for discussion of Seoul's aid to the impoverished North, could lead to a resumption of the regular delivery of rice and fertiliser to the communist nation. South Korea suspended its aid after the July missile tests.