PAJU, Republic of Korea: The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) held rare but brief talks yesterday that came as global powers tried to prevent Pyongyang from restarting its nuclear arms plant.

There were no immediate details available on the talks about the operations of a joint factory park in the DPRK border city of Kaesong that were delayed for nearly 12 hours due to a dispute over the venue and format, government officials said.

Any problems could add to growing frustration among regional powers with the DPRK, which defied the ROK, Japan and the United States earlier this month to launch a rocket in what was seen as a disguised long-range missile test.