(6th LD) Koreas fail to make progress in talks over joint park, no date set for next

(ATTN: UPDATES with chief delegate's press briefing, Seoul to raise detained worker
issue at ARF, analysis)
By Kim Hyun

SEOUL, July 2 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea failed to make progress in their
third round of talks on Thursday, Seoul officials said, with their positions wide
apart over a joint industrial park and the fate of a detained worker.
Pyongyang insisted on hefty rent hikes and refused to discuss the South Korean
worker, a demand that analysts say is aimed at pressuring Seoul's conservative
government to shifting course.
"The North showed no change at all in its attitude, insisting that rent should be
addressed foremost," Kim Young-tak, South Korea's chief delegate, said in a press
briefing after returning from the joint park in the North's border town of
Kaesong.
The talks were held as inter-Korean relations remained at their lowest point in a
decade after Seoul conditioned its aid to Pyongyang on North Korea's
denuclearization.
The third round of inter-Korean talks ended in an hour and 10 minutes in the
morning, and North Korea refused to meet again in the afternoon, Unification
Ministry officials said. No date was set for the next round.
In a 20-minute speech, North Korea's chief delegate Pak Chol-su renewed criticism
of the Lee Myung-bak government and reiterated that North Korea can no longer
grant South Korean firms "special favors" such as low wages and rent at the joint
park, Seoul officials said.
North Korea insisted that monthly wages for local employees be raised four-fold
to US$300. It also sought $500 million for a 50-year lease on the park, ditching
the $16 million rent deal signed when the park opened in 2004.
"Our side made it clear that the rent hike is a baseless demand and should be
withdrawn," Kim said.
In a 50-minute subsequent speech, Kim demanded to know the health condition of
the detained worker, identified only by his family name Yu, and pressed for his
release. The Hyundai Asan Corp. engineer who works at the joint park has been
held incommunicado since March on accusations of "slandering" the North's
political system and trying to persuade a North Korean female employee to defect
to the South.
"North Korea showed no response to this point," Kim said.
In a separate move, South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said he will
raise Yu's case at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Thailand later this month to draw
international attention to it.
South Korea also called on the North to "immediately stop" the denunciations of
the South Korean president that it carries on state media almost daily. Some of
their dispatches on Thursday described the Lee administration as "evil,"
"fascist" and "traitors."
Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea studies professor at Dongguk University, said any
compromise by North Korea is unlikely as its chief goal is to pressure the Lee
government to drop its conservative, pro-U.S. policy.
"Toward the South, it continues to be hardline to demand the fundamental change
of policy. It is saying, 'We are not going to bow our head to the Lee Myung-bak
government,'" he said.
Hong Ihk-hyun, an analyst with the Korea Institute for International Economic
Policy in Seoul, said North Korea's underlying message is not the $500 million
rent. It wants Lee's commitment on implementing the inter-Korean summit
agreements his liberal predecessors reached with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
in 2000 and 2007, Hong said.
"I don't think North Korea's intention is to get more money," he said. "It is
saying South Koreans should be treated the same as foreigners because the 'joint
spirit' has gone."
The businesses operating at the park were dismayed. On a sales decrease and
security concerns, a fur coat maker withdrew from the park last month, and a few
others were considering suspending production temporarily.
"We expected some progress about the border transit and the dormitory," Yoo
Chang-geun, vice chairman of the Kaesong Industrial Council that represents the
firms investing in the park, said. "We are deeply disappointed."
The North had offered to lift a border traffic curfew, and South Korea proposed
to build a dormitory and a nursery for North Korean workers. Those offers made no
progress.
The industrial park is the last surviving cross-border venture born out of the
first summit between then President Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il. Tourism
projects that took South Koreans to the North's historic and scenic spots were
all suspended last year as political relations unraveled.
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.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)