North Korea may be allowed to fly flag at Asian Games

South Korea might allow North Korea to fly its flag and play its national anthem when its communist neighbour attends the Asian Games in the city of Pusan, a government official said on Tuesday.

North Korea recently agreed to send a team to the Games, which will be held from September 29 to October 14 in Pusan, on the southeastern tip of South Korea.

"We're still discussing the issue with the Unification Ministry and other related institutions as it's not a simple matter," said the official at the Public Prosecutors Office.

South Korea's draconian National Security Law has long banned the hoisting of the North Korean flag and playing of its anthem. The two states remain technically at war, half a century after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armed truce.

After a nine-month gap, the two Koreas opened cabinet-level talks on Monday to revitalise stalled inter-Korean projects.

The talks resumed on Tuesday and were expected to focus on how to revive a stalled project to drive a rail link across one of the world's most dangerous borders.

Outside the Seoul hotel where the talks were held, about 100 protesters alleging that North Korea had kidnapped their relatives burned the North's flag, made up of red, blue and white stripes with an inset red star. They demanded that Pyongyang hand over their missing family members.

The Chosun Ilbo daily said authorities were likely to allow North Korea to fly its flag and play its anthem at the stadiums and at the team's camp.

North Korea has not said how many participants and spectators it will send, but the South has already started to prepare cloistered accommodation for more than 300 people.

"We're likely to make a decision on the issue before we hold working-level talks on the 17th (Saturday)," a Unification Ministry official said.

This is not the first time that sport has been enlisted in an effort to ease tensions on the divided peninsula.

In 1988, when South Korea hosted the summer Olympics, it and the International Olympic Committee invited the North to host some events. After months of uncertainty Pyongyang spurned the offer and boycotted the Games.

At the Sydney Games in 2000, athletes from North and South Korea marched together at the opening ceremony behind a "unification flag" -- a blue-on-white standard depicting the outline of the Korean peninsula.