South, North Korea meet over joint venture amid tension on peninsula

(ATTN: UPDATES with start of talks, quotes, traffic to joint park)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, June 11 (Yonhap) -- Officials of South and North Korea met again at a
joint industrial complex in the North on Thursday, trying to narrow differences
on the last remaining inter-Korean venture that had ruptured their previous
talks.

The rare meeting, held some 50 days after the first talks ended bitterly, comes
as border tensions remain high. North Korea has been threatening naval clashes
along the Yellow Sea border with South Korea and has been holding a South Korean
worker since March, accusing him of a "dishonest hostile act" against the
communist regime.
"The talks started at 10:40 a.m." at the joint park in the North's border town of
Kaesong, Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.
The talks were initially set to start at 10 a.m., but customs process for the
South Korean delegation took longer than expected, ministry sources said.
"The worker has been detained for more than 70 days, and the Kaesong complex is
in a very difficult situation," Kim Young-tak, senior representative for
inter-Korean dialogue at the Unification Ministry and head of Seoul's 14-member
delegation, said before crossing the military demarcation line. "We believe all
these issues should be resolved," he said.
North Korea sent five officials, led by Pak Chol-su, vice chief of the Special
District General Bureau, Pyongyang's agency overseeing the joint park, the
ministry said.
The North proposed talks to discuss the joint venture in its border town of
Kaesong last week, but circumstances surrounding the offer showed few hopeful
signs.
The previous inter-Korean meeting -- the first government-level talks in more
than a year -- ended bitterly in less than half an hour, as Pyongyang refused to
discuss the South Korean worker. North Korea said it would no longer grant
"special favors" for South Korean firms, such as low wages and rent, as long as
the Seoul government adheres to its hard-line policy.
In a follow-up statement last month, the North declared all contracts regarding
the joint park "null and void," saying it will revise them, and that any South
Korean firms that cannot accept the new terms can leave.
In the upcoming talks, North Korea is expected to lay out its demands, such as
wage hike rates, in more concrete terms rather than negotiate them.
Seoul will press North Korea on the detained worker from Hyundai Asan Corp., the
developer of the joint park, he said. North Korea has refused to allow access to
him, only saying an investigation is underway.
In a separate case this week, North Korea sentenced two detained U.S. journalists
to 12 years of hard labor. Captured near the border with China in March, the
reporters were found guilty of illegal entry and "hostile" acts.
The businesses in Kaesong held their breath as North Korean demands remained
uncertain. A fur coat manufacturer, Skin Net, will close its factory at the North
Korean park by the end of this month, citing the safety of its employees and a
decrease in sales.
"We don't have the slightest idea of how this will turn out," Ok Sung-seok, chief
of Nine Mode Co., a clothing company operating at the joint park, said. "Only
after we get our hands on the North Korean document, will we be able to say our
position."
The Kaesong venture, just an hour's drive from Seoul, is the last remaining
inter-Korean economic project to come out of the first inter-Korean summit in
2000. With low wages -- approximately US$70-$80 a month -- and free land use
initially guaranteed until 2014, the park has continued to grow and currently
hosts 106 South Korean firms producing clothing, kitchenware, electronic
equipment and other labor-intensive goods. More than 40,000 North Koreans work
there.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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