North Korea is expected to reopen military hotlines with South Korea that it severed earlier this year when it ratcheted up tensions, as the two Koreas are expected to hold a high-level meeting in Seoul this week, Seoul's defense ministry said Monday.

After Pyongyang made a surprise overture last week to hold talks with Seoul, working-level officials of the two countries met on Sunday in the truce village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to fine-tune the agenda and decide who would attend and what topics would be discussed. 

During the marathon talks that went through Monday morning, the North agreed to send its delegation to the South Korean capital for a two-day meeting from Wednesday to Thursday via a land route, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.

"As the North Korean delegation will be guarded by South Korean forces, the two Koreas will need to use the military hotlines to control their border crossing and provide support," ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said in a briefing. "Military hotlines are expected to be resumed for that purpose."

There are military hotlines connected to the North in the eastern coast and western coast used by officials of both sides, but Pyongyang cut the eastern line in 2011 after Seoul's suspension of tours to the North's Mount Kumgang after a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean guard in 2008. 

Pyongyang severed the last remaining military channels in the western coast in late March after cutting a Red Cross hotline amid high tensions, saying there was no need to keep military communications lines open where a war may break out any moment.

As the North last Friday reopened a Red Cross hotline that ran through the truce village to prepare the upcoming meeting, Seoul officials have widely expected that the military communication channels will be put re-opened as well.

The five-member North Korean delegation is expected to cross the Military Demarcation Line via an inter-Korean road, known as the Gyeonggui Line, and move to Seoul using cars provided by the Seoul government. South Korean soldiers in charge of the CIQ (Customs, Immigration and Quarantine) will escort them for their safety, according to military officials.

The two Koreas technically remain at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. (Yonhap News)