North Korean and US military representatives will meet Tuesday in the border truce village of Panmunjom to discuss the sinking of a South Korean warship, the US-led United Nations Command said.

It will be the first such meeting since the warship went down in March near the disputed inter-Korean sea border with the loss of 46 lives.

Regional tensions have risen sharply since South Korea, the United States and other nations accused the North of torpedoing the Cheonan corvette, a charge it vehemently denies.

The colonel-level meeting will discuss arrangements for future talks at general-level on the incident. Talks between generals were last held in March 2009.

The North previously refused to hold discussions with the US military over the sinking, saying it should talk only to the South Koreans, but shifted its stance last Friday.

The UN Security Council condemned the attack in a statement issued on Friday but did not apportion blame -- a result hailed by the North as a "great diplomatic victory".

The North also reiterated its conditional willingness to return to stalled international nuclear disarmament negotiations. Analysts say it appears to be seeking a way out of the months-long confrontation over the Cheonan.

"North Korea is putting forward an exit strategy in an attempt to escape from the Cheonan-dominated situation at an early date and turn the situation into a dialogue phase with the US," said Kim Yong-Hyun of Seoul's Dongguk University.

"That's because if the confrontation phase... drags on, it could burden the regime grappling with economic difficulties, succession plans and the issue of leader Kim Jong-Il's health," he told Yonhap news agency.

South Korea and the United States plan a naval exercise as a show of strength following the attack.

But they are still deciding where to hold the drill, originally planned for the Yellow Sea, following strong protests from North Korea's main ally China.

China, which resisted any UN condemnation of the North, has said it firmly opposes "foreign military vessels engaging in activities that undermine China's security interests in the Yellow Sea or waters close to China".

A Seoul defence ministry spokesman said South Korea and the United States are "fine-tuning the timetable, scale and location" of the manoeuvres.

Yonhap, quoting a government source, has said Seoul is considering moving the venue to its south or east coasts rather than the sensitive Yellow Sea.

South Korea has also professed itself satisfied with the UN statement, but has said the North should apologise for the warship attack and show a commitment to denuclearisation.

The naval exercise is not intended to raise tensions but as a precaution against any future provocations by Pyongyang, said foreign ministry spokesman Kim Young-Sun.

Asked at a briefing if the UN statement marked closure of the warship incident, Kim said this hinged on the North's actions and attitude.

"Reflecting the seriousness of the Cheonan incident, we expect North Korea to respect the statement and to take more responsible actions towards international society."

earlier related report
US says N.Korea must take action before talks
Washington (AFP) July 12, 2010 - The United States voiced skepticism Monday over North Korea's offer to return to talks on its nuclear program, saying the communist state must first show it is serious about dialogue.

Pyongyang said Saturday it was willing in principle to return to six-nation disarmament talks, amid high tensions over the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan that killed 46 people.

"If North Korea wants to engage seriously in the six-party process, there are very specific actions that North Korea has to take first before we would consider a resumption of the six-party process," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.

Crowley urged North Korea to cease "provocative behavior" as seen in the sinking of the Cheonan, which the United States and South Korea say was carried out by the North.

"If they're not prepared to show through affirmative actions a willingness to fulfill existing commitments under the six-party process -- that it's prepared to give up its nuclear program -- then you have to ask the fundamental question: What are we going to talk about?" Crowley said.

The six-nation talks -- which involve China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States -- agreed in 2005 and 2007 to offer badly needed aid and security guarantees for Pyongyang in return for giving up its nuclear program.

North Korea stormed out of the talks last year, when it test-fired a missile and carried out a second test of a nuclear bomb.

It made its latest offer to return to talks shortly after the United Nations adopted a statement condemning the Cheonan's sinking.

North Korea, which enjoys diplomatic support from veto-wielding China, hailed the statement as a victory as it did not explicitly blame Pyongyang for the attack but instead referenced an international investigation.

On the divided peninsula, the US-led United Nations Command said North Korean and US military representatives will meet Tuesday in the border truce village of Panmunjom to discuss the sinking of the warship.

Crowley said the US side had initially proposed the meeting to North Korea.

"This is a forum through which the militaries... can talk about violations of the armistice. Clearly, in our view, the sinking of the Cheonan was a profound violation of the existing armistice," Crowley said.

The 1950-53 Korean War ended only in an armistice. North Korea has repeatedly pressed the United States for talks on a permanent peace treaty, which would effectively confer greater international legitimacy on Kim Jong-Il's regime.