N. Korea scraps contracts with South on joint venture amid tension

N. Korea scraps contracts with South on joint venture amid tension
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By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, May 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Friday that all contracts with South
Korea over a joint industrial venture are no longer valid, accusing Seoul of
being "insincere" in negotiations and suggesting Pyongyang may even shut the
complex down.

The warning came after days of negotiations to set up official talks ended with
no breakthrough at the joint complex in the North's border town of Kaesong.
"We declare the nullification of all incumbent regulations and contracts
regarding the Kaesong industrial complex," the North's government agency in
charge of the joint park said in a statement carried by its official Korean
Central News Agency.
While announcing its decision to terminate the existing contract terms, the
North's agency vowed to install a set of revised regulations and contracts.
The South Korean government immediately expressed regrets, saying it won't accept
the North's cancellation of the Kaesong contracts.
The North said South Korea "destroyed the foundation of the Kaesong industrial
park" with its "extreme confrontational policy." In the discussions to set up the
talks, South Korea showed an "insincere attitude," it said in the statement
titled "The future of the Kaesong industrial complex is entirely up to South
Korea's posturing."
"The South Korean firms and pertinent personnel of the Kaesong industrial complex
should unconditionally accept what we hereby notify, and if they don't have
intentions to accept them, they can leave," the statement said.
More than 100 South Korean firms now operate at the Kaesong venture, producing
clothes, utensils, electronic equipment and other labor-intensive products with
nearly 40,000 North Korean workers.
Pyongyang called for inter-Korean talks last month to discuss operations at the
Kaesong park -- the first dialogue proposal in more than a year. But Seoul's
major concern is the fate of a South Korean worker who has been detained in
Kaesong since March 30 on charges of criticizing the North's political system.
In the first round of talks on April 21, North Korea demanded wage hikes and
contract revisions. The meeting lasted only 22 minutes, however, as Pyongyang
refused to discuss the fate of the detained worker.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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