Seoul officials travel to N. Korean park ahead of talks

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- An advance team of South Korean officials left for
North Korea Tuesday as Pyongyang gave notification of delegates that will attend
inter-Korean talks later this week on continuing a joint business venture in the
North.

The two Koreas are scheduled to meet again on Thursday to discuss operations at
the South Korean-run park in the North's border town of Kaesong. Their first
meeting in April ended bitterly over disputes on setting an agenda for the talks.
Pyongyang is demanding wage hikes and land use payments from South Korean firms
at Kaesong but refuses to discuss Seoul's major concern, a South Korean worker
detained at the Kaesong complex in March for "slandering" the North's political
system.
Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said four out of South Korea's 10 or
so delegation members left for the joint venture, just an hour's drive from
Seoul.
"These officials who traveled to the North today will be doing overall technical
preparations, making sure the facilities work well," Chun said in a briefing.
The meeting venue, the Office for Economic Cooperation and Consultations, has
remained closed after Pyongyang suspended inter-Korean dialogue last year in
protest over the new Seoul government's conservative policy.
Chun said North Korea sent to Seoul the list of its five-member delegation,
headed by Pak Chol-su, vice chief of the Special District General Bureau, the
North's government agency overseeing the joint park. Pak represented the North's
delegation in the April 21 talks, for which Pyongyang did not disclose the names
in advance.
Seoul notified Pyongyang of its delegation, headed by Kim Young-tak, director
general of the Kaesong Industrial Complex Project Bureau under the Unification
Ministry, over the weekend.
During the previous talks, North Korea complained that wages paid to its workers
are too low and demanded that land fees be paid 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," saying it will unilaterally revise them and that
South Korean firms that could not accept the new terms should leave.
Amid the deadlock, a clothing company, Sskin Net, said on Monday it would
withdraw from Kaesong by the end of this month, citing safety concerns for its
employees and a drop in sales. The first pullout since the joint park opened in
2004 has sparked concerns that there may be a greater exodus unless political
relations thaw and the business environment improves.
The joint venture is the last remaining inter-Korean economic project to come out
of the historic summit between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000. With low wages -- between approximately
US$70-$80 a month -- and free land use guaranteed until 2014, the park has drawn
106 South Korean firms producing clothes, kitchenware, electronic equipment and
other labor-intensive goods. More than 40,000 North Koreans work there.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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