North-South Korea interlocutor says, engaged in ongoing dialogue for breakthrough

The head of an international organisation who last year arranged a historic handshake between parliamentarians from North and South Korea said on Thursday he saw prospects for a breakthrough in talks on normalising relations.

"I am engaged in the ongoing dialogue between the north and the south and I'm optimistic that there will be a breakthrough," Martin Chungong, secretary-general of the 179-country Inter-Parliamentary Union, told reporters in Geneva.