North and South Korea began talks today in the city of Kaesong, with a view to reopening their joint industrial complex idled three months ago by heightened tensions on the peninsula, the Unification Ministry in Seoul said.
The 30-minute session in Kaesong, just north of the demilitarized zone dividing the countries, followed marathon preliminary talks in the border town of Panmunjom over the weekend, Yonhap News Agency reported.
South Korea has said it seeks guarantees that production at the Kaesong Industrial Region cannot be suspended without the agreement of both sides.
“Only by following such guidelines can there be development at the Kaesong complex,” Suh Ho, director of the ministry’s exchange and cooperation bureau, told reporters before today’s talks.
Pyongyang has agreed to discuss ways to implement safeguards to prevent a future shutdown of the park, Yonhap News Agency reported.
The Unification Ministry in Seoul said on Sunday that businessmen and engineers from the south would inspect the Kaesong Industrial Complex from Wednesday.
North Korea wanted operations to resume as soon as possible at the complex that was created at a 2000 summit, the report said.
The complex about 10 kilometres north of the border provides jobs and foreign exchange to the North, and cheap labour to southern industries.
It has been closed since Pyongyang pulled out all its 53,000 workers in April. The last group of about 800 South Korean managers left the zone on May 3.