North Korea, South Korea and the United Nations Command on Tuesday organised their first tripartite talks to discuss demilitarising the border between the two countries, reported Reuters. South Korea’s defence ministry said that the closed-door meeting was held at the border village of Panmunjom and was led by colonel-level military officials from each side.

At a historic summit last month, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to make the Korean peninsula a “region without nuclear weapons” and signed a joint statement to that effect.

The two Koreas on Tuesday agreed to pull out by the end of this year 11 guard posts within a 1-km radius of the Military Demarcation Line. Both sides will withdraw all firearms from the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom and reduce the number of personnel stationed there to 35 on each side. Troops from both countries stand face to face at Panmunjom.

The countries will also share information of their surveillance equipment. Tourists from both sides of the border and abroad will be allowed to freely come and go within the Joint Security Area.

The measures will be implemented over a month and would transform the border into a “place of peace and reconciliation”, said the ministry.

On Monday, the two countries agreed to start reconnecting rail and road links in spite of concerns from the United States that it could undermine efforts to force North Korea into giving up its nuclear arsenal.

Kim and Moon had met during a historic peace summit in Panmunjom on April 27, when they agreed to end the Korean War and make efforts to denuclearise the peninsula. They held another surprise meeting a month later at the same location in an effort to keep on track Pyongyang’s planned summit with the United States in June. The September summit was the third one this year.