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

(ATTN: UPDATES with reopening of talks, detail)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, June 11 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea resumed their talks over their
joint industrial park after a brief adjournment on Thursday, trying to narrow
differences on the last remaining inter-Korean venture and the fate of a detained
worker.

In the 50-minute first session, Seoul officials pressed the North on the release
of the South Korean worker who was detained at the venture in the North's border
town of Kaesong in March for criticizing the North's political system. Pyongyang
demanded wage hikes and other contract revisions, said the ministry spokesman
Chun Hae-sung.
"As was scheduled, the talks resumed at 3 p.m.," Chun said. He could not say
whether there was any progress in the morning session.
The rare talks are a follow-up to an April meeting -- the first government-level
dialogue in more than a year -- which broke down in less than half an hour as the
two sides could not narrow differences.
"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's delegation was 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 the talks, but circumstances indicate few hopeful signs.
In the previous meeting, North Korea refused to discuss the Hyundai Asan Corp.
employee, only identified by his surname Yu, saying an investigation is underway
for his "dishonest hostile act" against Pyongyang.
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.
The businesses at Kaesong park were rattled, lacking information on what North
Korea was demanding. Sskin 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 state 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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