SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Friday that it would honor its agreement to allow hundreds of older Koreans separated by the war on the peninsula six decades ago to reunite with their long-lost relatives, officials here said.

North Korea had threatened to scrap the reunions scheduled for this month unless South Korea canceled the joint annual military exercises it planned to begin with the United States on Feb. 24. During a high-level inter-Korean government meeting on Wednesday, the North said that if the South could not cancel the drills, it should at least postpone them for a few days so they would not overlap with the reunions slated for Feb. 20-25.

But during the second round of talks on Friday, North Korea retracted its demand and agreed to hold the reunions as scheduled, said Kim Kyu-hyun, the chief South Korean delegate.

The softening of the North’s stance came a day after Secretary of State John Kerry rejected Pyongyang’s demand.