No response from North yet: South

Hours before proposed military talks between South and North Korea, Pyongyang yesterday still refused to confirm its participation, officials said.

Seoul's defence ministry had offered rare talks with the North at the Panmunjom truce village on the heavily militarised inter-Korean border to discuss tension reduction today.

"There has been no response as of late Thursday", a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.

The Red Cross in Seoul had also proposed a meeting August 1 at the same venue to discuss reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

The twin proposals are the first concrete steps towards rapprochement with the North since South Korea in May elected the President Moon Jae-In, who favours greater engagement with Pyongyang.

The military meeting would mark the first official inter-Korea talks since December 2015. Moon's conservative predecessor Park Geun-Hye had refused to engage in substantive dialogue with Pyongyang unless it made a firm commitment to denuclearisation.

The development came as United States and Russia are waging rival campaigns at the United Nations Security Council over the type of ballistic missile fired by North Korea earlier this month as the US pushes to impose stronger sanctions on Pyongyang over the test.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley held an intelligence briefing for her council colleagues on Monday to argue that Pyongyang fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), diplomats said, which was attended by Russia and North Korean ally China.

The US briefing came after Russia sent a brief letter and diagram on July 8 to the 15-member Security Council, seen by Reuters, asserting that its radars determined that the missile launched by Pyongyang on July 4 was medium-range.