Two North Korean soldiers at a flower exhibition in Pyongyang. (AP)

Seoul, Feb. 14 (Reuters): North and South Korea said today they had agreed to resume ministerial talks, a day after a breakthrough energy-for-arms deal at six-party talks on the North’s nuclear programmes in Beijing.

The dialogue between the two Koreas — still technically at war — collapsed in acrimony after Pyongyang tested a volley of missiles last July. The South’s unification ministry said delegates would meet in the North Korean border city of Kaesong tomorrow to discuss when to open new talks.

North Korea’s state-run news agency said Pyongyang agreed to the proposal for renewed contact between the two countries, whose 1950-53 war ended with an armistice and left the Korean peninsula divided by one of the world’s most heavily armed borders.

The talks signal renewed momentum after yesterday’s breakthrough toward dismantling the North’s nuclear arms programme, but chief US negotiator Christopher Hill cautioned that difficult work remained to implement the accord.

The deal, hammered out in the shadow of North Korea’s first nuclear test last October, requires the secretive state to shutter it’s Yongbyon reactor within 60 days in exchange for 50,000 tons of fuel oil or equivalent aid. “I think we all need a rest in the next 24 hours, but we have so much work to do,” a tired-looking Hill said. “We have to begin the process of getting this agreement implemented.”

The marathon talks finally reached a compromise that Hill said hinged on the amount of energy aid offered.

“It was the energy issue, and it was our willingness to go bigger on energy in return for them going deeper on denuclearisation,” he said.

After the 60-day period, North Korea will receive another 950,000 tons of fuel oil when it takes further steps to disable its nuclear capabilities.