Seoul demands talks on closed factory park with Pyongyang
Source: Agencies |
April 26, 2013, Friday
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AFTER weeks of threatening rhetoric from North Korea, South Korea yesterday promised its own unspecified "grave measures" if Pyongyang rejects talks on a jointly run factory park shuttered for nearly a month.
The park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong is the most significant casualty so far in the recent deterioration of relations between the two countries. Pyongyang barred South Korean managers and cargo from entering North Korea earlier this month, then recalled the 53,000 North Koreans who worked on the assembly lines.
South Korea's Unification Ministry yesterday proposed working-level talks on Kaesong and urged North Korea to respond by noon today, warning that Seoul will take "grave measures" if Pyongyang rebuffs the call for dialogue.
In a televised news conference, spokesman Kim Hyung-suk refused to say what those measures might be. Some analysts said Seoul would likely pull out the roughly 175 South Korean managers who remain at the complex.
He said South Korea set a Friday deadline because the remaining workers at Kaesong are running short of food and medicine. The companies there are suffering economically because of the shutdown.
To resolve deadlocked operations at Kaesong, Kim said North Korea should first allow some South Koreans to cross the border to hand over food and medicine to the managers.
North Korea didn't make an immediate response yesterday, the Unification Ministry said.
The demand for talks follows a lull in what had been a period of rising hostility between the two countries.
Pyongyang has recently eased its threats of nuclear war and expressed some tentative signs of interest in dialogue. Its demands, including dismantling all US nuclear weapons, go far beyond what its adversaries will accept, but Washington, Seoul and Beijing have also pushed for an easing of animosity.
The Kaesong complex is the last major symbol of cooperation remaining from an earlier era that saw the two countries set up various projects to facilitate better ties.
The factory park has operated with South Korean know-how and technology and with cheap labor from North Korea since 2004. It has weathered past cycles of hostility between the rivals, including two attacks blamed on North Korea in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans.
More than 120 South Korean firms operated at Kaesong.
The park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong is the most significant casualty so far in the recent deterioration of relations between the two countries. Pyongyang barred South Korean managers and cargo from entering North Korea earlier this month, then recalled the 53,000 North Koreans who worked on the assembly lines.
South Korea's Unification Ministry yesterday proposed working-level talks on Kaesong and urged North Korea to respond by noon today, warning that Seoul will take "grave measures" if Pyongyang rebuffs the call for dialogue.
In a televised news conference, spokesman Kim Hyung-suk refused to say what those measures might be. Some analysts said Seoul would likely pull out the roughly 175 South Korean managers who remain at the complex.
He said South Korea set a Friday deadline because the remaining workers at Kaesong are running short of food and medicine. The companies there are suffering economically because of the shutdown.
To resolve deadlocked operations at Kaesong, Kim said North Korea should first allow some South Koreans to cross the border to hand over food and medicine to the managers.
North Korea didn't make an immediate response yesterday, the Unification Ministry said.
The demand for talks follows a lull in what had been a period of rising hostility between the two countries.
Pyongyang has recently eased its threats of nuclear war and expressed some tentative signs of interest in dialogue. Its demands, including dismantling all US nuclear weapons, go far beyond what its adversaries will accept, but Washington, Seoul and Beijing have also pushed for an easing of animosity.
The Kaesong complex is the last major symbol of cooperation remaining from an earlier era that saw the two countries set up various projects to facilitate better ties.
The factory park has operated with South Korean know-how and technology and with cheap labor from North Korea since 2004. It has weathered past cycles of hostility between the rivals, including two attacks blamed on North Korea in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans.
More than 120 South Korean firms operated at Kaesong.
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