(3rd LD) Koreas end morning session in talks over joint venture park

(ATTN: UPDATES with repose, official's quote)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, June 19 (Yonhap) -- South Korea pressed for the release of a detained
worker and North Korea demanded hikes in wages and rent, a Seoul official said,
as the future of their joint business park faced a critical juncture amid growing
tensions between Pyongyang and the outside world.

The talks 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.
In the morning session that continued for close to two hours, South Korea's
delegation raised the case of the Hyundai Asan Corp. employee who has been
detained since March for "slandering" the North's political system, an official
with the Unification Ministry said in a background briefing, requesting
anonymity.
North Korea presented its demands for wage and rent raises at the joint park in
the North's border town of Kaesong, the official said. The two sides have yet to
agree whether to meet again in the afternoon, the official said.
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. North Korea wants South Korean firms to 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.
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)