North and South Korea, aiming to fulfil their long-held dream of fielding a joint Olympic team, met on Tuesday to try to iron out differences on the composition of a unified squad, officials said.

Talks on a joint Korean team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics have been in the works for more than a year but have hit delays due the political fallout from Pyongyang's defiant missile test in July 2006 followed by its first nuclear test in October.

"We are till trying to form a joint team. We will focus on the composition of that team in these discussions," a South Korean Olympic official said.

Delegates from the two Koreas were meeting in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.

Still technically at war because the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with only a truce, North and South Korea first considered competing together at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. But years of acrimony and military tension have prevented it from happening.

Forming joint teams would be difficult, however. The South, with better-funded sports programmes and more world-class athletes, wants to field the most competitive team possible.

North Korea has said it wants to field a joint team with equal representation of athletes from the North and South.

The two Koreas have marched together in opening ceremonies at previous Olympics before competing as separate teams.