SEOUL - South and North Korea will resume talks this week on arranging reunions for families separated for more than half a century by minefields and barbed wire, Seoul officials said Tuesday.

The reunion programme, organised by the Red Cross in each country, had been suspended for almost two years as political ties chilled. But the communist North has made a series of peacemaking gestures this month.

It has accepted Seoul's proposal to hold a three-day preparatory Red Cross meeting from Wednesday at the North's Mount Kumgang resort, the unification ministry said.

The North's leader Kim Jong-Il last week agreed with a visiting Seoul business chief that reunions should resume for families divided by the 1950-1953 war.

The two sides said they should resume around the Korean Thanksgiving holiday on October 3. The last such event was held in October 2007.

The family programme - which arranges meetings but not permanent reunions - was shelved during a worsening of relations between Pyongyang and the conservative government which took office in Seoul in February 2008.

Last weekend, in his latest conciliatory gesture, Kim Jong-Il sent envoys to Seoul for talks with President Lee Myung-Bak.

Tens of thousands of family members are separated and in many cases do not even know if loved ones are still alive. There are no civilian mail or phone services across the heavily fortified frontier.

The reunion programme began in earnest after the first inter-Korean summit in 2000 eased tensions between the historical enemies.

More than 16,000 Koreans from both sides of the border were allowed face-to-face meetings while thousands of others communicated through video links.  

But many people are dying without ever achieving longed-for reunions.