South Korea has played down expectations it might get a firm commitment from North Korea to rejoin talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear arms development.
Three days of talks in a rare bilateral meeting between the between the two Koreas have failed to produce a formal agreement, which is likely to include farm aid to the impoverished state.
But the top North Korean delegate was upbeat as he emerged from the morning session, according to reports.
"An agreement will be reached," Kim Man-gil said at the talks in Kaesong, a North Korean town close to the fortified Demilitarised Zone border bisecting the peninsula. "Look forward to it."
On Monday, the South dangled the prospect of a "serious" new proposal if Pyongyang returned to the six-party talks, but the North has so far not taken the bait.
"The top priority for this round of vice-ministerial talks is to normalise relations between the South and North," South Korea's Vice Unification Minister, Rhee Bong-jo, said before he left Seoul for Kaesong.
The United States would be open to more direct engagement with the North if it returns to six-country talks, a key US official involved in the negotiations said in Washington -
in an apparent response to growing pressure to be more flexible.