Three days after shutting down the border with the South, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has partially reopened the crossing to let South Koreans stranded in a northern industrial zone head home.

Meanwhile, South Korea and the United States continued their annual joint military drills on Monday.

South Korean officials say the DPRK agreed to allow the South Koreans back across the border from the Inter-Korean Industrial Complex in DPRK's border city of Kaesong.

Lee Jong-Joo, spokeswoman, S. Korean unification ministry, said, "The agreement the North sent says it will allow people and transportation to pass through the Military Demarcation Line. According to this, there will be three shifts of returns this afternoon".

Hundreds of South Koreans working at factories in the border town were stuck in the DPRK last weekend after officials shut the crossing on Friday amid heightened tensions on the peninsula.

The DPRK has agreed to let some 450 South Koreans head home on Monday, but they will leave about 270 South Koreans in Kaesong overnight.

Pyongyang cut off the only communications hot line between the two Koreas and twice prohibited border crossings to protest against the US-South Korean military exercises. It said the line will remain severed until the joint drills end on March 20.

In the midst of high tension on Korean peninsula, about 300 US forces with two Bradley fighting vehicles conducted live-fire exercises near the border with the DPRK on Monday, as part of their annual defensive drills.

(CCTV March 17, 2009)