S. Korea readies for first meeting with North in year amid gloomy outlook

(ATTN: UPDATES with Lee's meeting with Cabinet ministers, more experts' views,
MODIFIES N. Korea's message in 6th para)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, April 20 (Yonhap) -- A seven-member South Korean delegation is set to
visit the North for the first cross-border talks in over a year, a spokesman said
Monday, as grim forecasts prevailed amid threats from Pyongyang.
The meeting on Tuesday comes as a South Korean worker remained in detention for a
fourth week in a joint industrial complex on North Korea's soil, the venue of the
talks.
Seoul was hoping to hear about the detained worker, but watchers were skeptical
that there would be any good news. The first government-level dialogue in the Lee
Myung-bak administration is to be held amid heightened military tension across
the border, following the North's rocket launch and warnings against Seoul's move
to join a U.S.-led security campaign.
Lee called an unscheduled meeting with Cabinet ministers to assess potential
scenarios.
The South Korean delegation, led by Kim Young-tak, director general of the
Kaesong Industrial Complex Project Bureau, will cross the border at around 9 a.m.
for the meeting at the industrial complex in the North's border town of Kaesong,
said Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun.
Seoul officials could not say what the North would bring up at the meeting,
except to quote North Korea's message that said that it would involve "issues
related to the Kaesong industrial complex project." Pyongyang offered the meeting
through a hand-delivered letter to South Korea's management office in Kaesong on
Thursday, and Seoul accepted it on Sunday.
"Our goal is that this inter-Korean meeting should be held in a way that is
helpful for the safety of our citizens and stable development of the Kaesong
industrial complex," Kim said in a briefing, in an apparent referrence to the
detained worker.
The employee of Hyundai Asan Corp., the developer of the Kaesong venture, has
been detained by the North since March 30 on accusations of criticizing North
Korea's political system and trying to induce a female North Korean worker to
defect. The North has said it was investigating the worker -- whose name is being
withheld for privacy reasons and who is known only to be an engineer in his 40s
-- and rejected calls for access to him.
Watchers note the general climate is too negative to expect a breakthrough. The
ministry spokesman said the North proposed to meet, but ministry sources
requesting anonymity said the North Korean message was more of a unilateral
action than a proposal, in which Pyongyang said it had "an important notice to
announce."
Cho Bong-hyun, a North Korea analyst with South Korean major lender IBK, said
North Korea appears to have no intention to negotiate. It will likely use the
talks to announce its decision on the detained worker, possibly to indict and try
him in the communist state, Cho said.
The North may also demand the withdrawal of South Korean workers from the Kaesong
complex, he said.
The industrial complex, just an hour's drive from Seoul, is the last remaining
inter-Korean reconciliatory venture. More than 100 South Korean manufacturers of
garments, utensils and other small labor-intensive factories operate there,
employing about 39,000 North Koreans. The Seoul government and South Korean
businesses have invested 730 billion won (US$548 million) into the venture since
it opened in 2005.
Other joint economic projects, including tour programs to scenic sites in North
Korea, were all suspended last year. Pyongyang also cut off all government-level
talks with Seoul.
The dialogue also comes amid heightened warnings from North Korea. The North's
military threatened Seoul over the weekend, saying "The Lee group of traitors
should never forget that Seoul is just 50 km away from the Military Demarcation
Line," along which North Korean artillery is dispatched. The warning referred to
Seoul's plan to fully join the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a
U.S.-led campaign launched in 2003 against the spread of weapons of mass
destruction, whose main targets include North Korea.
Seoul, currently an observer, has said it will join the PSI but continued to drag
its feet, mindful of Pyongyang's possible provocations.
Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies said Pyongyang will force
Seoul to choose between the PSI and the Kaesong complex. He recounted that
Pyongyang offered military dialogue before curtailing traffic to the joint
venture in December -- its first retaliatory measure against the Kaesong park to
protest Lee's conservative, pro-U.S. policy.
"The North used the military dialogue to notify its sanctions. The pattern now is
the same," Yang said, "It will put South Korea at a crossroads -- whether to join
the PSI or let North Korea completely sever relations with it."
North Korea is also holding two female American journalists who were detained
near its border with China on March 17. Washington has said dialogue is underway
to free them.
The two detention cases have added to the growing tensions resulting from North
Korea's recent rocket launch. Defying international warnings, Pyongyang fired a
long-range rocket on April 5 and said it has orbited a satellite as part of its
peaceful space program.
Outside monitors said no such object entered space.
The U.N. Security Council issued a condemnation saying the launch violated a U.N.
resolution banning the North from ballistic activity. South Korea, the U.S. and
Japan viewed the launch as a disguise for a test of the North's long-range
missile technology.
North Korea protested the U.N. response 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.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)