South Korea ? High-level military officials from North Korea and the U.S.-led U.N. Command held urgent talks at the border today amid heightened tensions in the region and concerns that the North intends to test-fire a long-range missile.

The talks at the village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone dividing North and South Korea — the first meetings between general-level military officials since 2002 — were hastily arranged after the North proposed them last week, U.N. command spokesman Kim Yong-kyu said.

Relations between the two Koreas are at their lowest point in a decade. The two Koreas technically remain at war because their three-year conflict in the 1950s ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

The tensions have intensified in recent weeks amid reports that North Korea is preparing to test a long-range missile believed capable of reaching U.S. territory.