Officials from North and South Korea attended a “working-level” meeting Thursday to try to prepare an agenda to repair ties between the two neighbors.

Meetings between mid-level officials began Thursday on the North Korean side of the “truce village” Panmunjom.

South Korea’s chief negotiator Kim Ki-woong told reporters in Seoul before he left for the meeting that his side would do its best to accomplish the goals of the meeting.

Major issues between the nations include reunions for the surviving members of families separated decades ago by the division of the Korean Peninsula. Also at stake is a tourism agreement for North Korea’s Mount Kumgang that was suspended in , after a North Korean guard shot a South Korean tourist.

The Korean talks do not have a history of great success. The last attempt at high-level talks in 2013 was suspended only a day before they were supposed to take place, when North Korea took issue with the fact that South Korea was not sending its top-level official to the meeting. 
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