South Korea ? A high-level North Korean delegation conveyed a message from leader Kim Jong Il to the South Korean president during a rare meeting today in the latest sign of warming ties on the tense Korean peninsula.

President Lee Myung-bak and three North Korean officials discussed inter-Korean cooperation during the half-hour meeting at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, Lee spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said. He said the message from Kim Jong Il, conveyed verbally, addressed “progress on South-North Korean cooperation” but refused to provide further details.

The two Koreas remain in a state of war since their three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953, with tanks and troops guarding the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone dividing the two sides.