Chinese authorities are questioning five South Koreans including journalists after detaining them near the sensitive border with North Korea, a Seoul foreign ministry official said Friday.

The five-member team sent by JoongAng Ilbo newspaper is under investigation following a reporting trip to the frontier area, a ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"They entered China Sunday and were held by Chinese authorities Tuesday for questioning. They are now being held in a hotel for investigation," the official said.

A JoongAng Ilbo official who also declined to be named said the party had not been formally detained. They had been ordered to stay in their hotel but were able to communicate freely with their office in Seoul.

"The case is not serious because they went on a reporting trip with tourist visas, not journalist visas, and negotiations are under way through our foreign ministry," the newspaper official said.

They were reportedly visiting the Tumen River area in northeast China.

Two US journalists were arrested by North Korean border guards in the Tumen border area in March 2009 after briefly crossing the border into the North.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to 12 years' hard labour before being freed as part of a diplomatic mission spearheaded by former US president Bill Clinton in August that year.

N. Korea, US to resume talks on war dead: reports
Seoul (AFP) Sept 23, 2011 –

North Korea and the United States will resume talks next month on recovering the remains of US troops killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, South Korean media reports said Friday.

The reports, if confirmed, would suggest an easing of relations amid diplomatic efforts to restart nuclear disarmament negotiations.

Arrangements "have been recently finalised" between Pyongyang and Washington to resume talks on excavating and repatriating remains of US soldiers from the North, Yonhap news agency quoted a Seoul foreign ministry official as saying.

JoongAng Ilbo newspaper earlier carried a similar report. The ministry declined to comment.

The unidentified official said the talks might take place in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, where the two sides had met on the issue previously.

The US Department of Defense says 8,031 Americans are unaccounted for in North and South Korea following the 1950-53 conflict, in which the United States led a United Nations force fighting alongside the South.

Joint US-North Korean search teams, in 33 missions in the North from 1996-2005, recovered the probable remains of 229 of them.

But cooperation stopped in 2005 when the United States voiced concerns for the safety of its personnel as relations worsened over North Korea's nuclear programme.

Diplomatic efforts are underway to restart long-stalled six-nation talks on ending the North's nuclear programme. On Wednesday the chief nuclear negotiators from the two Koreas held a second round of talks in Beijing.

A media report said the US and North Korea are also seeking to hold a second round of talks early next month aimed at reopening the six-party forum.

The North has long sought to sign a peace treaty with the United States to formally end the war, which finished with only an armistice.

Washington says the issue should be discussed in the context of the six-party nuclear talks.