The Unification Ministry on Wednesday approved a South Korean civic group's request to visit North Korea this week to discuss preparations for a joint event for the 70th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan's colonial rule.
  

The North's preparatory group for a joint anniversary proposed to its South Korean counterpart on Monday that the two sides meet in the North's border city of Kaesong on Thursday to discuss preparations for a joint anniversary event on Liberation Day, which falls on Aug. 15.
  

"(The government) has approved a plan for the preparatory contact between South and North Korean civilian groups, scheduled for tomorrow, to discuss the Aug. 15 joint event," a ministry official said.
  

The move came as North Korea has rejected South Korea's recent offers for talks between parliamentary speakers and a global security forum, claiming Seoul should first end its confrontational policy toward Pyongyang.
  

But in what could be seen as a conciliatory gesture, the North, albeit at the non-government level, has proposed to have preparatory talks for the joint event.
  

On Sunday, the North's Korean Central News Agency said that the North will hold a variety of events to mark the 70th anniversary in Pyongyang and the truce village of Panmunjom on Aug. 13-15. The Korean Peninsula was under Japan's colonial rule from 1910-45.
  

North Korea "keeps the door open to South Koreans" who hope to take part in the events, it said.
  

In June, the two Koreas failed to hold a joint ceremony to mark the 15th anniversary of an inter-Korean summit as the North abruptly proposed holding separate events.
  

South Korea earlier said it will encourage its civic groups to increase inter-Korean exchanges in non-political areas in a bid to promote national unity. (Yonhap)