(2nd LD) Koreas resume talks on joint venture park

(ATTN: UPDATES with start of talks, unification minister's quote, TRIMS)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, June 19 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea resumed talks over a joint
business park on Friday, as the last-remaining inter-Korean venture now faces a
critical juncture amid sharpened confrontation between Pyongyang and the outside
world.

The talks are a follow-up to the first round last week and come after South
Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed a stern response to Pyongyang's provocative
behavior in a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this week.
"The talks started at 10 a.m. as scheduled" at the joint park in the North's
border town of Kaesong, an official with the Unification Ministry said in a
background briefing, requesting anonymity.
Seoul officials expressed hope. "The weather is good today, so wouldn't the talks
go well?" Kim Young-tak, senior representative for inter-Korean dialogue at the
Unification Ministry and head of the 14-member delegation, told reporters before
crossing the border.
Watchers doubt there will be any room for negotiations, with few signs of
compromise from both sides. At issue are North Korea's demands that South Korean
firms quadruple monthly wages for its workers to US$300 from the current $70-80
and raise collective land rent to $500 million, a 31-fold increase from the $16
million paid when the park opened in 2004.
Kim said South Korea will press for the release of an engineer from Hyundai Asan
Corp. who was detained at the joint park in March on charges of "slandering" the
North's political system.
Unlike the previous round, Seoul heads to the talks with a clear position after
Lee rejected the North Korean demands as "unacceptable" during his summit with
Obama.
Unification Minister Hyun In-taek acknowledged the last-remaining inter-Korean
venture is now at a critical moment.
"One step you take and one stone you lay in today's talks will be crucial to
inter-Korean relations. In that sense, I ask you to remain cool-headed during the
talks," Hyun told the delegation before its departure.
Hyun has said Seoul is willing to build dorms and nurseries for North Korean
workers, mostly women in their 20s and 30s, part of the demands put forward by
North Korea along with the wage and rent hikes.
The joint park was born out of the first historic inter-Korean summit in 2000 and
continued to grow under South Korea's liberal governments, despite the North's
first nuclear test in 2006. More than 100 South Korean firms currently operate
there, making clothes, kitchenware, electronic equipment and other
labor-intensive goods with about 40,000 North Korean employees.
But unraveling political relations have taken their toll on the businesses. As a
sign of increased stress, a clothing manufacturer withdrew this month in the
first pullout by a South Korean firm from the industrial park.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)