No signs of normalized traffic at N.K. border despite agreement

SEOUL, Aug. 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korea had not normalized the flow of border
traffic with the South despite a recent promise from its leader Kim Jong-il to do
so, the government said Tuesday.

On Sunday, Kim met with South Korea's Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun and
agreed to resume stalled tourism projects and reunions of families separated by
the 1950-53 Korean War.
The North Korean leader also agreed to lift a traffic curfew on South Korean
workers and cargo trucks traveling to a joint industrial park in its border town
of Kaesong, limiting cross-border travel to six designated times per day.
The curfew, which came as a retaliation against Seoul's hardline policy in
December, has constrained business operations at the Hyundai-developed park that
hosts more than 100 South Korean firms with about 40,000 North Koreans.
"The North has not contacted us regarding the lifting of the traffic limitation,"
Lee Jong-joo, spokesperson for the Unification Ministry, said at a press
briefing, adding that the traffic flow at the border will be conducted as usual.
The spokesperson also said that Unification Minister Hyun In-taek met with the
Hyundai chairwoman late Monday to be briefed on her meeting with the North Korean
leader.
"We expect for Hyundai to submit a written report (the chairwoman's visit to
North Korea) within the week," said Lee.
Seoul's Unification Ministry on Monday cautiously welcomed the five-point
agreement between Hyundai, a private business, and North Korea as "positive" but
that dialogue between the governments should precede implementation.
The whereabouts of four fishermen recently detained in the North were still
unclear, according to Lee, who said that Seoul has only received a response from
North Korea that they were still "under investigation."
The fishermen and their squid fishing boat, the Yeonan 800, were hauled to a
North Korean port for investigation on July 30 after straying across the
inter-Korean maritime border.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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