South Korea's Ministry of Defense said Thursday South and North Korea are likely to take part in sea rescue exercises staged by Russia's Pacific Fleet command later this month.

South Korea has accepted Russia's invitation to the exercises in waters off Nakhodka in the Russian Far East for Aug. 18-27.

A ministry official said the South Korean navy plans to send a destroyer with a complementary force of 200 seamen, a sea rescue helicopter and two senior officers to the exercises.

The official also said Russia had asked North Korea to observe the land-based section of the exercises. Pyongyang has reportedly notified Moscow that it will send one or two officers.

Should the North dispatch observers to the exercise, it would mark the first time the two Koreas have taken part in a joint overseas military exercise.

It would also herald the first South Korea-Russia joint military exercise and be the first example of the implementation of a bilateral accord on preventing dangerous military actions signed at the two countries' defense ministers' talks in December last year.