(3rd LD) South, North Korea to meet at joint park next week

(ATTN: ADDS minor details, more analysis; CHANGES attribution in lead)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, June 5 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea will meet at a joint industrial
park in the North next week, the Unification Ministry said Friday, amid
sharpening military tensions and a deadlock over a detained South Korean worker.
North Korea "sent a document today proposing working-level talks" on June 11, and
the Seoul government accepted the proposal, said ministry spokesman Chun
Hae-sung.
The letter, hand-delivered to South Korea's management office at the joint park
in the North's border town of Kaesong, did not set an agenda, except to say the
meeting will be "regarding the Kaesong Industrial Zone," he said.
The rare dialogue offer comes as South Korea's military is on heightened alert
along the inter-Korean border. North Korea warned last week of military clashes
along their western sea border, the site of two bloody skirmishes in 1999 and
2002, in response to South Korea's participation in a U.S.-led anti-proliferation
campaign.
North Korea also appears to be preparing for medium- and long-range missile tests
following its second nuclear test on May 25, Seoul officials say. U.N. Security
Council members are negotiating a resolution to condemn North's nuclear
experiment.
Amid the diplomatic deadlock, North Korea refused to discuss a detained South
Korean worker. The Hyundai Asan Corp. employee, identified only by his family
name of Yu, was detained at the joint park on March 30 on charges of "slandering"
the North's political system and trying to incite the defection of a female North
Korean employee. Pyongyang has given no word about Yu's fate, contrary to two
detained U.S. journalists who were allowed consular contacts and phone calls to
family and were tried in the North's top court on Thursday.
Chun could not say whether the upcoming talks will help ease military tension or
win Yu's release. But the government took note that North Korea made the dialogue
offer knowing that Seoul will bring up Yu's issue.
"We believe that the North is well aware of our government's position and must
have given it enough consideration before making the dialogue proposal," Chun
said.
The talks, proposed by the North's government unit overseeing the joint park,
will be the second inter-Korean meeting since conservative President Lee
Myung-bak took office in February last year.
Pyongyang cut off dialogue, protesting Lee's tough stance toward its nuclear
program and suspension of aid.
Experts, however, were skeptical about a breakthrough.
In the first talks in April, North Korea complained that the wages paid to its
workers at the Kaesong park are too low and demanded land fees be charged from
next year, four years ahead of schedule.
In a follow-up statement in May, the North declared all contracts regarding the
joint park "null and void," and said it will unilaterally revise them. It told
South Korean firms to leave if they can't accept the new terms.
Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea studies professor at Dongguk University, said North
Korea will again use the talks to unilaterally announce its demands. Chances are
low that Pyongyang will agree to discuss Yu's release when inter-Korean relations
remain deadlocked, he said.
"I don't think North Korea will be different," Kim said. "If its previous demands
were broad, they will be specific this time, like how much money it wants to
receive in wages and land fees."
Lim Eul-chul, an analyst with the non-governmental Institute for Far Eastern
Studies of Kyungnam University, expects the inter-Korean stalemate to deepen
after the talks. The next question will be whether South Korean firms will accept
North Korea's demands, likely including drastic wage hikes, he said.
"The situation leading to the dialogue proposal doesn't make us expect a positive
consultation," he said.
The joint venture, about an hour's drive from Seoul, is the last remaining
inter-Korean economic project resulting from the summit meeting between then
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. With low
wages -- about US$70-80 a month -- and free land use guaranteed until 2014, the
park has drawn more than 100 South Korean firms producing clothes, kitchenware,
electronic equipment and other labor-intensive goods. Some 40,000 North Koreans
work there.
Some watchers say North Korea's hard-line military wants to shut down the park,
where capitalist influence has filtered in through routine day-to-day contact
between South Korean managers and North Korean employees.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)