South Korea decided Wednesday to permit a civic group to contact North Koreans to prepare for a joint event to mark an inter-Korean summit anniversary slated for next month.

The decision -- which came just weeks after liberal President Moon Jae-in took office in Seoul -- is widely seen as a sign of a thaw between South and North Korea.

It may lead to the first joint commemoration of the 2000 summit in nine years despite heightened tensions over the North’s nuclear and missile programs.

On Tuesday, the non-government organization made the request for government approval for a plan to meet its North Korean counterpart to discuss the 17th anniversary of the first meeting of the two Koreas‘ leaders held on June 15, 2000.

The two sides agreed during a meeting in China in February to hold the event in Pyongyang or Kaesong in North Korea. The NGO officials contacted the North Koreans without government approval.

Any trip by South Koreans to North Korea requires the Seoul government’s approval as well as the North‘s consent. The sides still technically remain in a state of war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

The leaders of the two Koreas produced a joint declaration during their landmark summit in 2000 that paved the way for eased military tensions and economic cooperation after decades of hostility.

The two sides had alternated hosting joint celebrations of the summit in the past but the joint anniversary events were suspended in 2008.

In 2007, the leaders of the two Koreas also held a second summit and produced a deal calling for massive South Korean investment in the North’s key industrial sectors, including shipbuilding.

North Korea has routinely pressed South Korea to honor agreements reached at two previous summits.

The deals have been in limbo due to lingering tensions between the two Koreas. (Yonhap)