2 Koreas meet in North to discuss factory park despite tensions following artillery firing

2 Koreas discuss economic cooperation

SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korean officials held talks Monday on a joint industrial complex just days after the North renewed tensions between the neighbors by firing artillery toward their disputed sea border.

North Korea lobbed dozens of shells near the western sea border during a military exercise last week, prompting South Korea to respond with a barrage of warning shots. No casualties or damage were reported, and South Korean officials said North Korea’s artillery landed in the water.

The poorly marked sea border is a constant source of tension between the two Koreas. Their navies fought a skirmish in November that left one North Korean sailor dead and three others wounded, and engaged in bloodier battles in the area in 1999 and 2002.

Despite the flare-up in border tension, officials of the two Koreas met at the North Korean border town of Kaesong on Monday as previously scheduled to discuss how to develop their joint factory park there, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry. Details of the meeting were not immediately available.

The one-day meeting marked the first working-level inter-Korean talks on the development of the Kaesong complex since last July.

The Kaesong complex combined South Korean capital and know-how with cheap North Korean labor when it opened in 2004, and has served as a key symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. About 110 South Korean factories at Kaesong employ some 40,000 North Korean workers.

However, tensions between the two Koreas last year put the project in jeopardy. The two Koreas technically remain in a state of war because their three-year conflict ended in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty.

The nuclear-armed North has been reaching 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.

The two Koreas met last month at Kaesong to assess the joint tour but made no significant progress, with Seoul officials balking at the North’s demand to put wage hikes on the agenda.

South Korean officials are hoping to focus on easing border crossings and customs clearances for South Koreans who travel to and from the complex.

“We have told them that we can naturally discuss the issue like wage hikes after (Kaesong complex’s) productivity and competitiveness increase,” chief South Korean delegate Kim Young-tak told reporters before crossing into the North via the heavily fortified border.

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AP Television News cameraman Yong-ho Kim contributed to this report from Dorasan Station, South Korea.