(2nd LD) Two Koreas to meet over joint complex, Seoul delays joining anti-proliferation drive

(ATTN: ADDS details on first talks by government officials, Lee's remark at Cheong
Wa Dae meeting, visits to Kaesong)
By Byun Duk-kun and Kim Hyun
SEOUL, April 18 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea will meet next week to discuss
their joint industrial complex, Seoul officials said Saturday, following
Pyongyang's rare offer of talks amid heightened regional tensions.
Seoul promptly delayed its participation in a U.S.-led anti-proliferation drive,
which was expected on Sunday, apparently to avoid provoking Pyongyang ahead of
the crucial inter-Korean talks -- the first since the Lee Myung-bak
administration took office in February last year.
In a message faxed on Thursday, the North proposed meeting on Tuesday next week
in the joint industrial complex in the North's border town of Kaesong, where a
South Korean worker has remained in detention since March 30, Seoul's Unification
Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said in a briefing.
Seoul will accept the offer, said an official at the presidential office Cheong
Wa Dae, requesting anonymity as the decision has yet to be officially announced.
"There is no reason for us to reject the proposal," said the official, who is
involved in North Korean affairs.
Unification Ministry spokesman Kim said North Korea wants to discuss "issues
related to the Kaesong industrial complex." He did not elaborate on North Korea's
message, but a ministry source said on condition of anonymity that the North had
an unidentified "important notice" to give.
"The North did not say what the important notice would be, whether it involves
the matter of the detained employee or the matter of operating the Kaesong
complex," the source said.
North Korea has been holding the employee of Hyundai Asan Corp., the developer of
the Kaesong complex, without giving a full account of his alleged violations. In
a message faxed on the day that he was first detained, Pyongyang only said the
worker, known as a man in his 40s, "denounced the political system of our highly
esteemed republic and schemed to degenerate and spoil our female employee to
incite defection." Pyongyang has since given no further explanation and refused
Seoul's calls to allow access to him.
The detention posed another challenge to the Kaesong project, which has often
fallen victim to damaged political relations over the past year. North Korea
curtailed South Korean traffic to the joint venture in December and banned visits
several times last month in retaliation against the conservative Lee government.
The industrial complex, just an hour's drive from Seoul, where more than 100
South Korean garments, utensils and other labor-intensive small firms operate
with about 39,000 North Korean employees, is the last remaining inter-Korean
reconciliatory venture. Other joint economic projects, including tour programs to
North Korea's scenic sites, were all suspended last year.
Pyongyang also cut off government-to-government talks with Seoul.
Speculation has mounted that the North may try to shut down the Kaesong complex
as its final pressure tactic. South Korean government and businesses have
invested 730 billion won (US$548 million) since the complex opened in 2003. The
North Korean government received $26 million in wages from South Korean firms
last year, according to ministry data.
The proposed talks over the Kaesong park come at a sensitive time for the Lee
government, which plans to announce its full participation in the Proliferation
Security Initiative (PSI), a U.S.-led campaign to interdict and seize transports
carrying weapons of mass destruction. Seoul has so far participated as an
observer.
North Korea, seen as a primary target of the initiative, has warned Seoul that
joining the PSI will be tantamount to a "declaration of war."
After several delays already, South Korea on Saturday again postponed the PSI
announcement until after the proposed talks with North Korea.
"We should firmly keep our principles, but also need to make a comprehensive and
strategic decision when dealing with a situation," President Lee was quoted as
saying in a meeting called at 7:30 a.m.
The foreign ministry also issued a statement, saying "We need to take into
considerations factors such as inter-Korean relations in announcing the PSI
participation." But the ministry reasserted Seoul's position to join the PSI
remains unchanged.
Moon Moo-hong, chairman of privately-run Kaesong Industrial District Management
Committee which oversees the joint complex, traveled to the Kaesong complex on
Saturday to try to make contact with North Korean officials over the detained
worker. Cho Kun-shik, president of Hyundai Asan, was also staying in Kaesong.
The North is also holding two female U.S. journalists who were arrested near its
border with China last month. Pyongyang said they will be tried in North Korea on
charges of illegal entry and unspecified "hostile acts."
The two detention cases have added to the growing tensions from North Korea's
rocket launch. Defying international warnings, Pyongyang fired a long-range
rocket on April 5, prompting the U.N. Security Council to issue a condemnation
saying the launch violated a U.N. resolution banning the North from ballistic
activity.
North Korea upped the ante by withdrawing from six-way nuclear disarmament talks
and expelling inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency who have
been monitoring the country's main nuclear facility. The Yongbyon facility has
been nearly disabled under a disarmament deal with South Korea, the U.S., China,
Japan and Russia, but the North said it will restore it.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)