North and South Korea held the first meeting Monday of a committee tasked with reopening their Kaesong joint industrial zone -- five months after it was shut down amid soaring military tensions.

The committee, comprising five officials from each side, sat down for talks in Kaesong at 10am (0100 GMT), with the initial agenda focused on the timing for reopening the complex.

The two sides failed to make a breakthrough by the end of Monday's session, reported the South's Yonhap news agency, agreeing to resume talks later in the week.

The agency quoted a South Korean official as saying that Seoul asked for compensation for companies hurt by the work stoppage.

"We have called for the restoration of military hotlines that run along the west coast, restoration of infrastructure and administrative rules and safeguards to prevent a recurrence of the work stoppage," the official said.

He added the North meanwhile had called for the immediate opening of the complex.

Established just over the North Korean side of the border in 2004 as a rare symbol of inter-Korean cooperation, Kaesong had come through previous crises on the Korean peninsula unscathed.

But in April, as tensions flared following the North's third nuclear test, Pyongyang effectively shut down operations by withdrawing the 53,000 North Korean workers employed at the 123 South Korean plants.

The two Koreas agreed last month to work together to resume operations at the zone, which is an important source of hard currency for the cash-strapped regime in Pyongyang.

As part of the agreement, the North accepted the South's demand that Kaesong be opened to foreign investors -- a move seen by Seoul as a guarantee against the North shutting the complex down again in the future.