South Korea on Tuesday proposed holding high-level talks with Pyongyang on January 9, after the North's leader Kim Jong-Un held out an olive branch and said Pyongyang might attend the Winter Olympics.

"We hope that the South and North can sit face to face and discuss the participation of the North Korean delegation at the Pyeongchang Games as well as other issues of mutual interest for the improvement of inter-Korean ties," South Korea's unification minister Cho Myoung-Gyon told a press conference.