South, North Korea to hold talks over joint park

(ATTN: UPDATES with delegation's departure, official's quotes)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, July 2 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean delegation traveled to North Korea on
Thursday for a third round of talks over a joint industrial venture, hoping to
keep the momentum in the dialogue amid few signs of a breakthrough.
The talks are being held as North Korea faces tightening financial sanctions by
the outside world for its May nuclear test. The inter-Korean industrial park has
given the North a steady cash flow.
"We will agree on things that can be agreed on, and for things that are hard to
agree on, we will put them aside and take (our) time," Kim Young-tak, head of
South Korea's 16-member delegation said, before heading to the North.
The talks are set to start at the joint park in the North's border town of
Kaesong at 10 a.m.
The Unification Ministry said Seoul's priority is the case of a detained worker
who has been held incommunicado since March. North Korea refused to grant access
to the Hyundai Asan Corp. engineer, only identified by his family name Yu, saying
he has first to be investigated on accusations of "slandering" the North's
political system. Amnesty International has called for his immediate release.
Over the first two rounds in June 11 and June 19, the two sides exchanged their
demands and proposals, and Thursday's talks are expected to be a litmus test for
the possibility of narrowing differences.
In the first round, North Korea demanded South Korean firms raise monthly wages
four-fold to US$300. It also sought $500 million for a 50-year lease on the park,
overriding inter-Korean contracts that had South Korean developers paid $16
million when the park opened in 2004.
In the second round, North Korea insisted on its initial offer, but eased up on
non-cash issues. The North offered to lift a border traffic curfew it imposed on
South Korean workers and cargo trucks in December to protest Seoul's conservative
policy.
South Korea offered to build a dormitory and a nursery for North Korean workers,
mostly women in their 20s and 30s. It also proposed a joint survey on foreign
investment zones in China and the United States to improve the business viability
of the inter-Korean venture. Concerning the wage and rent demands, President Lee
Myung-bak has rejected them as "unacceptable."
"On the June 11st, the North presented many agenda items, and on the 19th, we
talked a lot," Kim said. "Today, I expect there will be a flurry of discussions."

The industrial park is the last surviving cross-border venture born out of the
first summit between South and North Korean leaders in 2000. Tourism projects
that took South Koreans to the North's historic and scenic spots were all
suspended last year as political relations unraveled after Lee took office.
The joint park hosts more than 100 South Korean firms making clothing,
kitchenware, electronic equipment and other labor-intensive goods with about
40,000 North Korean workers. The firms paid more than $26 million in wages to the
North Korean government last year.
North Korea's hardline military has been reluctant to continue the joint park
where capitalist culture has filtered through, analysts say, but Pyongyang
appears to intend to keep the cash cow in the face of U.N. financial and other
sanctions.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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