North Korea, South Korea and the United Nations Command began talks Tuesday (Oct 16) on demilitarising a section of the heavily fortified border piding the peninsula, as a diplomatic thaw gathers pace.

Talks have begun on demilitarising part of the border piding North and South Korea, where soliders from the two sides have faced off for decades. (Photo: AFP/Jung Yeon-je)

"The first meeting between the South, North and the UNC on disarming the Joint Security Area (JSA) will take place at 10am today at Panmunjom," Seoul's defence ministry said in a message sent to reporters.

The JSA, also known as the truce village of Panmunjom, is the only spot along the tense, 250km frontier where troops from the two countries stand face to face.

It was a designated neutral zone until the "axe murder incident" in 1976, when North Korean soldiers attacked a work party trying to chop down a tree inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), leaving two U.S. army officers dead.

South and North Korea - which are technically still at war - agreed to take measures to ease military tensions on their border at a meeting in Pyongyang last month between President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un.

Earlier this month, the two sides began removing landmines at the JSA - which is now often used for talks between the two Koreas - as part of the deal, and are due to withdraw "unnecessary" surveillance equipment once the landmine work is completed.

The September summit was the third this year between the leaders as a remarkable rapprochement takes hold on the peninsula.

Moon has advocated engagement with the isolated North to nudge it toward denuclearisation.

During his summit with Kim last month, the two men also agreed to remove some guard posts at the border by the end of the year and to halt military drills in the area from November.

Tuesday's talks were the first meeting of a trilateral JSA commission made up of the two Koreas and the U.N. Command, which is included as it retains jurisdiction over the southern half of the JSA.

Its chief, U.S. general Vincent Brooks, told reporters in August that as U.N. commander he supported initiatives that could reduce military tensions.

But he added that as commander of the combined U.S.-South Korean forces - one of his other roles - he felt there was a "reasonable degree of risk" in Seoul's plans to dismantle guard posts near the DMZ./.

VNF/AFP