A North Korean delegation will visit next week the National Cemetery in Seoul on the occasion of Liberation Day.

The Unification Ministry in Seoul on Saturday said some 30 government and civic delegates from the North will visit the cemetery either Sunday or Monday, the first North Korean group to do so since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

The remains of some 54,000 patriots, mostly soldiers killed during the war, are buried in the cemetery located just south of the Han River.

Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo said the North offered to pay homage at the cemetery during a phone conversation with Seoul at the border village of Panmunjom earlier this month.

He said the delegation's visit to the cemetery has great historic significance, calling it the first step towards healing the scars of the fratricidal Korean War and the enusing national division.

The 17-member North Korean government delegation, accompanied by a 165-member civic delegation, is to arrive in Seoul Sunday to attend Liberation Day celebrations.

Kim Ki-nam, a secretary of the Central Committee of the North's Worker's Party, is heading the delegation of high-ranking officials including Lim Dong-ok, vice chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.

Both men are close aides to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.