The two-day meeting will start on Monday at the North's Mount Kumgang resort, the South's foreign ministry said.

"The meeting is aimed at facilitating progress at the next round of the six-nation working group meetings on providing energy to North Korea," an official at the ministry's spokesman's office told AFP.

The working group on energy is one of five working groups that resulted from the February nuclear disarmament agreement.

The group last met at the truce village of Panmunjom in August. South Korea plans to host the next round by the end of October.

The energy-starved communist country has asked for fuel oil and help to patch up its decrepit power plants in return for shutting down its nuclear facilities.

North Korea shocked the world last year with its first nuclear bomb test, which galvanised international talks to dismantle its nuclear weapons programmes.

The talks, involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States, led to a deal for Pyongyang to disable key facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex and declare all other nuclear programmes by year's end.

North Korea shut down its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and four other related facilities in July, and allowed inspectors from the UN atomic watchdog back into the country.

It has received the first tranches of a promised one million tonnes of fuel aid in return for progress achieved so far.

The North suffers acute electricity shortages.

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