SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea began talks with North Korea on possible aid to the country Wednesday despite its failure to make progress on an international agreement to dismantle its nuclear programs.

Chin Dong-soo, left, who leads the South's government delegation to North Korea, receives a bouquet of flowers from a North Korean woman upon his arrival at Pyongyang airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, April 18, 2007. [AP]

The economic talks in Pyongyang, which run through Saturday, come as the two Koreas restore relations that suffered a blow last year following the North's missile and nuclear tests that rattled regional stability.

The dialogue was restored after the North pledged in February to take steps to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for energy aid and political concessions.

But North Korea failed to meet a Saturday deadline to shut down its sole operating nuclear reactor because it is waiting for a separate financial dispute to be resolved. North Korea's main precondition for disarming has been to receive some $25 million in funds frozen after Washington blacklisted a Macau bank for alleged complicity in North Korean money laundering and counterfeiting.

South Korea has said it will act on the North's request for 400,000 tons of rice at this week's economic talks - the 13th such session - no matter what happens with the disarmament process. But it remained unclear if Seoul will agree to resume the food shipments, after Deputy Unification Minister Kim Jung-tae said Tuesday simply that "food aid will be discussed" at the talks.

At an opening banquet Wednesday evening, the North pressed the South to separate the two issues.

"We work in the strict principle of the separation of politics and economics," North Korean Senior Cabinet Councilor Kwon Ho Ung said, according to pool reports. "Let's implement already agreed-upon issues, overcome barriers bravely and advance grandly as united people."