TOKYO (Sputnik) — The Yonhap news agency quoted Kim Jong-un as saying during his New Year's address that it was necessary to "open the way" for normalization of relations between the two Koreas.
South and North Korea remain legally at war, as no peace treaty was signed after the Korean War of 1950-1953.
In December 2015, the sides resumed talks after tensions escalated in August with an exchange of cross-border fire along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Pyongyang declared what it described a "semi-state of war" at the time.
The two-day talks finished without any results.