North Korea is safe enough to resume searches for the remains of thousands of Americans killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, the Pentagon said Tuesday as the two nations held rare talks.

Delegations from the United States and North Korea, which have no diplomatic relations, met in Bangkok for what were expected to be several days of discussions on restarting the operations.

Then-US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld snapped off the operations in 2005 amid a crisis over North Korea's nuclear program, saying there were concerns for the safety of US nationals involved in operations.

Asked what has changed since then, Defense Department spokesman George Little said that North Korea has reached out to the United States about restarting the recovery.

"Because of their overture, we believe our personnel can safely perform these operations in North Korea," he added. "We always intended to resume these operations."

Little said that the United States would not pay North Korea for the remains but that there would be "associated expenses" such as labor, fuel, food and security.

Some 7,988 Americans are missing from the Korean War, with around 5,500 of them believed to be in North Korea, according to the Defense Department. Joint search teams recovered the probable remains of 229 servicemen in the North from 1996 until 2005.

The talks in Bangkok came as South Korea's Yonhap news agency said that the North and the United States will hold a second meeting next week in Geneva to discuss how to restart six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner declined to comment on any upcoming nuclear talks.

President Barack Obama's administration has insisted that North Korea clearly commit to past denuclearization accords and work to ease tension with the democratic South before holding any substantive talks.

US advocates for engagement with North Korea have long called for resumed searches for soldiers' remains, seeing them as an uncontroversial way to foster better understanding between the two countries.