Three senior North Korean officials will make a rare visit to South Korea on Saturday to attend the Asian Games closing ceremony in what could potentially bring a breakthrough in tense ties between the Koreas.

Heading the delegation will be Hwang Pyong So and Choe Ryong Hae, who are senior aides to North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong Un, South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman told a news briefing.

The announcement of the visit comes as a surprise because Pyongyang has been issuing invectives toward the South and President Park Geun-hye, criticizing her calls for Pyongyang to end its arms program.

The two Koreas are technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce and without a peace treaty. Armed clashes in recent years have killed soldiers on both sides, and in 2010 civilians in the South were killed when the North bombed an island.

Hwang is the head of the North Korean army's General Political Department, a powerful apparatus loyal to the secretive country's leader and a key post overseeing the 1.2-million-member military.

Kim has been absent from public view since Sept. 3, fuelling speculation that he may be in bad health.