President Park Geun-hye called Thursday for dialogue and cooperation in Northeast Asia amid fresh tensions on the Korean Peninsula over high-level talks.

The Koreas had agreed to hold high-level talks between late October and early November during a recent surprise visit to South Korea by a high-powered North Korean delegation. South Korea later proposed to hold the talks on Oct. 30 as North Korea had asked the South to set a date.

On Wednesday, North Korea rejected South Korea's offer in protest of leaflets that South Korean activists and North Korean defectors regularly send to North Korea to encourage North Koreans to rise up against their leader, Kim Jong-un.

South Korea has said there are no legal grounds to prevent its activists from floating the leaflets, citing freedom of expression.

"We desperately need dialogue and cooperation in the international community as well as in Northeast Asia more than ever before," Park said in a video message to the Seoul Defense Dialogue, an annual regional security forum.

Park did not specifically mention North Korea or any other countries in her brief message.

Also Thursday, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won vowed to keep pushing for talks with North Korea, though there are difficulties.

"We urge North Korea to come forward for inter-Korean talks in a sincere manner by trusting our commitment to dialogue," Chung said in a speech at the forum.

The security forum brought together senior defense officials and security experts from the U.S., Japan, China Russia and 20 other countries as well as those from three international organizations of the United Nations, the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (Yonhap)