SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea on Friday accepted North Korea's proposal for working-level talks this weekend, but requested the venue be changed to the border truce village of Panmunjom.

A spokesperson for the South's Unification Ministry said the request had been sent to Pyongyang using a cross-border hotline reopened by North Korea earlier in the day.

North Korea wanted to hold the working talks - ahead of a ministerial meeting in Seoul on Wednesday - in the Kaesong joint industrial zone, which was closed by the North in April as military tensions on the peninsula soared.