North Korean envoys sent to mourn former South Korean leader Kim Dae-Jung have called for an immediate improvement in inter-Korean ties.
They are also expected to hold a meeting with conservative President Lee Myung-Bak, Yonhap news agency said.
They are believed to have sought the meeting with Mr Lee because they were carrying a message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il that they wanted to convey.
Relations between the two nations deteriorated after Mr Lee came to power last year pledging to take a firmer line with Mr Kim and his isolated communist regime.
'While meeting many South Koreans here, I came to believe that inter-Korean ties must be improved at the earliest possible date,' said Kim Yang-Gon, the visiting North Korean official in charge of inter-Korean ties.
'We've had little opportunity to talk... I hope that these first high-level official talks under the Lee Myung-Bak administration will provide a chance to have frank talks,' he told South Korea's Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek.
The six-member Pyongyang delegation was originally in Seoul only to mourn the death of Kim Dae-Jung, who won the Nobel Peace Prize after he held the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.
However, amid recently improving ties with Seoul and the US, South Korean officials and the travelling delegation from the North held 90 minutes of talks this morning.
The rare encounter and the meeting with Mr Lee has raised hope for better ties on the Korean peninsula after the North's second nuclear test three months ago.
