A North Korean envoy sent to mourn former South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung met with a government minister in Seoul on Saturday in the first high-level talks in nearly two years.

Kim Yang-Gon, one of a six-member North Korean delegation making a rare visit south of the border to pay tribute to the late leader, began talks with Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek on Saturday morning, a media pool report said.

"Now that we meet here, I'm going to raise inter-Korean issues," Hyun told journalists before he entered talks with Kim Yang-Gon, a top Pyongyang official in charge of inter-Korean ties.

The North's high-level delegation arrived yesterday to pay tribute to Kim Dae-Jung, who died Tuesday aged 85. He held the first-ever inter-Korean summit in 2000, during his 1998-2003 presidency.

The rare meeting raised hopes for a breakthrough amid tension on the Korean peninsula, which rose over the North's second nuclear explosion three months earlier that sparked international sanctions.

Chung Dong-Young, a former unification minister, urged the government to seize the opportunity to mend inter-Korean ties, which have soured since conservative President Lee Myung-Bak took power in February 2008.

"Even after his death, President Kim Dae-Jung is laying a bridge over troubled inter-Korean ties," Chung said. "I hope the South Korean government can use this opportunity to mend the South-North relationship."