Thursday July 2, 09:24 AM
Two Koreas end talks on fate of joint project
SEOUL (AFP) - North and South Korea ended a new round of talks about the fate of their last major business project, amid tensions over the communist state's nuclear and missile programmes.
The meeting at the Kaesong joint industrial estate just north of the border lasted just one hour and 10 minutes, Seoul's unification ministry said, without giving details of the outcome pending a briefing.
Yonhap news agency said there had been no breakthrough and the two sides set no date for their next round of talks.
The South has rejected the North's demands for huge wage and rent increases at the Seoul-funded estate. It insists on access to a South Korean worker at Kaesong who has been held incommunicado by the North since March 30.
"Our side said in a keynote speech that we cannot accept North Korea's unreasonable demands that it has presented over the joint park after unilaterally scrapping existing contracts," Yonhap earlier quoted a unification ministry official as saying.
Representatives of the 105 South Korean firms at Kaesong say many of them are already close to bankruptcy because of falling orders amid icy cross-border relations.
At the first round of talks last month Pyongyang stunned Seoul by demanding a wage rise for its 40,000 workers to 300 dollars a month from around 75 dollars currently.
It also demanded an increase in rent for the estate to 500 million dollars, compared with the current 16 million dollars for a 50-year contract.
At the second round the North stuck to its financial demands but offered to lift restrictions on border crossings it imposed last December.
Kaesong, which opened in December 2004, is the last operating reconciliation project between communist North and capitalist South.
But its future has become increasingly uncertain as inter-Korean relations have worsened and as the North's nuclear standoff with the world has intensified.
Some analysts believe the North wants to keep the estate going since it now faces tighter curbs on lucrative missile exports, under UN and US sanctions imposed in response to its May 25 nuclear test.
The cash-strapped North received 26 million dollars last year in wage payments at Kaesong.
Others say Pyongyang may be willing to forgo the cash because it fears exposing its workers to a South Korean lifestyle.
"From Pyongyang's point of view, each worker ... was a poster advertising capitalism, damaging the socialist system," said Leonid Petrov, research associate at the Australian National University, in an article this week.
Seoul's priority is the South Korean worker. The North refuses to grant access to the man, who is accused of slandering its political system and of trying to incite a local woman worker to defect.
Amnesty International has called for his immediate release.
South Korea has offered to build a dormitory and a nursery for North Korean workers, mostly women in their 20s and 30s. But it rejects the wage and rent demands as excessive and unrealistic.
Cross-border relations have been hostile for the past year, since Seoul's new conservative government rolled back a "sunshine" aid and engagement policy with Pyongyang.
The North has intermittently restricted access to Kaesong and expelled some South Korean staff.
|
|
|
Send Article by Email
Send Article by IM
Blog This with Y! 360
Printable View
