South and North Korea appear unlikely to hold their Cabinet-level talks this month. The move follows a recent diplomatic row over mass North Korean defections and Seoul's refusal to allow its citizens to visit the communist country on the 10th anniversary of the death of the North's founding leader.

South and North Korean officials opened their routine daily telephone talks at the border village of Panmunjom earlier in the day but there was no mention of the inter-Korean ministerial meeting.

At their talks in Pyongyang, the two sides agreed to hold four days of Cabinet-level talks in Seoul beginning Tuesday.

Twice last week, Northern officials failed to respond to Seoul's request for border contacts to prepare for the meeting, citing a lack of instructions from their superiors.

The two sides have been at odds over last week's mass defection of North Koreans from a Southeast Asian country. North Korea blasted Seoul for accepting the hundreds of defectors and threatened to take unspecified retaliatory actions.