Seoul  - North and South Korea are planning to modernize the telephone connection between their armed forces in the latest step in a cautious rapprochement between the two countries.

South Korea was due to deliver optical lines and other communications equipment worth 850 million won (720,000 dollars) to is neighbour next week, the Unification Ministry in Seoul said Wednesday, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

The total cost of the upgrade was estimated at 2.1 billion to 2.7 billion won.

"We have come up against big difficulties in communicating because of the worn-out equipment," ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.

In the past month, it has led to 30 cases of miscommunication, the spokeswoman said.

The existing line is used to exchange information about cross-border traffic.

The two countries agreed to modernize the line at the end of 2007, but the project was put off because of rising tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul.

Communist North Korea has recently softened its stance toward the capitalist South in moves that have included relaxed restrictions on commuter traffic to the jointly run industrial park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong.(dpa)