N. Korea demands talks with South over troubled joint venture

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, April 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea demanded negotiations for operational
changes at an industrial complex jointly run with South Korea, saying it plans to
scrap benefits for South Korean firms, Seoul officials said Wednesday.

North Korea gave the notice in the first inter-Korean government talks in more
than a year that took place in its border town of Kaesong on Tuesday. The meeting
lasted for only 22 minutes after a delay of more than 12 hours due to procedural
disputes, officials said.
The North "will fully reconsider systematic special benefits it has given to the
South for the Kaesong industrial complex project," the North Korean document,
released by South Korea's Unification Ministry, said. "Negotiations will begin,"
it said, "The South will have to respond sincerely to required meetings."
The seven-member South Korean delegation, led by Kim Young-tak, director general
of the Kaesong Industrial Complex Project Bureau under the Unification Ministry,
returned home after exchanging documents with its North Korean counterpart that
laid out demands of each side.
The joint venture, just an hour's drive from Seoul, is the last remaining
inter-Korean reconciliatory project launched by the Kim Dae-jung administration
and opened during his successor Roh Moo-hyun's government. More than 100 small
South Korean factories operate there, employing about 39,000 cheap but skilled
North Korean workers, who manufacture garments, utensils and other small,
labor-intensive items.
In a hand-delivered letter to South Korea last week, North Korea said it had an
"important notice" to announce regarding the Kaesong complex.
Seoul's primary concern was a South Korean worker being held by the North in the
Kaesong complex since March 30. The employee of Hyundai Asan Corp., a South
Korean company that developed the joint park, was accused of criticizing the
North's political system and trying to incite a local female worker to defect.
North Korea "refused even to bring up the matter of our citizen under
investigation," the ministry said in the press release.
Tuesday's talks were the first official inter-Korean governmental contact for
President Lee Myung-bak's administration which took office in February last year.
Cross-border ties had fast deteriorated under his government which directly
linked assistance to the North with its denuclearization.
Regional tension has further risen since the U.N. Security Council strongly
condemned the North's April 5 rocket launch. In response, the North kicked out
international nuclear monitors and quit the six-party denuclearization talks.
With the North Korean proposal for further talks, the South Korean presidential
office is likely to further weigh an official announcement to become a full
participant of the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)
anti-proliferation campaign. Seoul, currently an observer in the campaign, said
it will fully join the PSI, but has continued to delay joining in consideration
of inter-Korean relations.
"Now that North Korea has proposed negotiations over the Kaesong complex, we will
see how the situation develops," a senior administration official said over the
telephone on condition of anonymity.
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 the two, but Pyongyang has said it will indict them on charges of
illegally entering the country and committing "hostile acts."
hkim@yna.co.kr
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