Koreas agree to hold talks next month on joint industrial complex

Koreas agree to hold talks on industrial park

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea and South Korea agreed Thursday to meet next month to discuss their joint industrial park — a promising sign for the future of a project seen as the most prominent symbol of cooperation between the two Koreas.

The factory park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong was created during a warming of relations between the wartime foes. About 110 South Korean factories employ some 42,000 North Korean workers, providing firms with cheap labor and impoverished North Korea with a key source of hard currency.

However, tensions between the two Koreas in 2008 and 2009 left the future of the factory park in question.

North Korea severely restricted cross-border traffic in December 2008 as tensions rose, making it difficult for South Korean firms to send workers and goods into Kaesong. In June, the North also demanded a four-fold wage hike for workers last year, but later backed down and called for a 5 percent raise.

As the two Koreas tussled over Kaesong, North Korea was also locked in a standoff with the international community over its nuclear program. Sanctions were tightened against Pyongyang after a series of provocative moves, including a nuclear test, a rocket launch and missile test-fires.

North Korea has reached out to the U.S. and South Korea in recent months, and joined South Korean officials in touring industrial parks in China and Vietnam in December to find ways to develop the Kaesong project.

Officials from the two Koreas met this week in Kaesong to assess the joint tour and to set the groundwork for working-level talks.

South Korean officials had said earlier Thursday that the two sides failed to set a date for the talks, with Seoul rejecting North Korea’s demand to put wage hikes on the agenda.

However, North Korean officials later agreed to Seoul’s proposal for talks on Feb. 1, Kim Young-tak, Seoul’s chief delegate, told reporters.

Hours later, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported that the South agreed to discuss the wage issue in next month’s talks, a claim denied by Kim.

The two sides could discuss border crossings and customs clearance; the use of mobile phones and Internet for South Korean companies, and construction of lodging facilities for North Korean workers, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.

The two Koreas remain in a state of war because their three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953.

Last Friday, North Korea threatened to break off dialogue and attack Seoul in response to reports that Seoul had assembled a contingency plan to handle any unrest in the North.

South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Tae-young called for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea if there is clear indication the country is preparing a nuclear attack.

Envoys from neighboring nations, meanwhile, are seeking to convince North Korea to return to nuclear disarmament negotiations.

Pyongyang quit the talks involving China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States last year but has shown some willingness to return to the negotiations. South Korean envoy Wi Sung-lac was to meet with U.S. officials in Washington on Thursday to discuss reopening the talks, the State Department said.