(LEAD) N. Korea offers talks with S. Korea on border restrictions

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SEOUL, Jan. 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Friday proposed military talks next
week to discuss restrictions hindering South Korean transportation and
communications in and out of a joint factory park in the North, an official here
said.

Seoul has long demanded that Pyongyang ease restrictions concerning customs
clearance, passage of South Korean workers and communications in and out of the
border complex, where some 110 South Korean firms employ 42,000 skilled local
workers for low wages.
"The North proposed the talks on Jan. 26," Unification Ministry spokesman Chun
Hae-sung said, noting it was unusual because the North has yet to formally
embrace the South Korean demand.
"Normally, the military steps in to help implement agreements made by their
governments," he told reporters, adding his government will start considering
whether it will agree to the talks.
The proposal is the latest in a series of moves North Korea has made this year as
part of its cross-border peace offensive.
On Thursday, officials of the divided states agreed at their first contact this
year to meet again Feb. 1 to discuss ways to enhance the competitiveness of the
Kaesong industrial park. South Korea has yet to decide whether it will accept
last week's North Korean proposal for talks on resuming suspended cross-border
tours.
Vowing to raise the standard of living for its people by increasing the supply of
basic necessities, the impoverished North has demonstrated its willingness this
year to boost foreign trade and improve relations with the outside world,
including the South.
North Korea considers easy access to its soil a threat to its regime stability,
strictly controlling the flow of information and people across the border.
Following the talks that ended Thursday in Kaesong, the North dismissed the South
Korean demand for freer access and communications as an "unessential" and
"artificial obstacle" impeding progress in the improvement of the complex.
South Korea hopes access into Kaesong can be guaranteed around the clock so
products manufactured there can more easily be moved out for prompt export. Kim
Young-tak, chief South Korean delegate to this week's talks, said the proposed
measures are "essential" in boosting the competitiveness of the complex against
its rivals.
Officials of the Koreas, which remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean
War ended in a truce, visited industrial parks in China and Vietnam together in
December, gaining first-hand insight into what they believe could be models for
the Kaesong complex.
North Korea demands pay raises must first be achieved for its workers, while the
South has brushed off the demand, saying wages have yet to match productivity at
the park. The minimum monthly wage for a North Korean worker remains just under
US$58.
The series of North Korean proposals for dialogue comes amid tension that
heightened after the communist state's top decision-making body, the National
Defense Commission, warned of an attack on the South over unconfirmed contingency
plans Seoul had reportedly made in preparation for regime collapse in Pyongyang.
North Korea, believed to be undergoing a hereditary power succession, bristles at
any suggestion of implosion. On Sunday, for the first time ever, North Korean
leader Kim Jong-il was reported to be inspecting a joint training session of the
army, navy and air force, further raising tension on the peninsula.
The North, which operates a military of 1.2 million troops, is believed to
possess enough plutonium to create at least six atomic bombs. The country has in
recent months shown willingness to return to six-nation talks that would bring it
diplomatic and economic benefits for its denuclearization, but says that
sanctions imposed on it for its nuclear and missile testing must first be lifted.
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