SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) - North Korea has proposed a meeting on a joint industrial park amid mounting tension on the divided peninsula over the North’s defiant rocket launch, a South Korean official said Saturday.
The joint complex in the North Korean border town of Kaesong is the last major joint project between the rival Koreas and a key source of currency for the impoverished North’s communist regime.
Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon told reporters that the North proposed to meet with South Korean officials at the complex on April 21, but it is not clear exactly what the country wants to discuss.
Earlier Saturday, however, South Korea’s Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said that the North proposed the meeting to discuss a South Korean man who has been held in the complex since late last month for allegedly denouncing the North’s political system.
South Korea has repeatedly called on North Korea to grant access to the South Korean man, but the North has refused to do so, without providing any specific reason.
North Korea has also been holding two female American journalists since they allegedly crossed the border from China on March 17 while reporting on North Korean refugees. The U.S. State Department has said the North has assured U.S. officials the journalists, who were working for San Francisco-based Current TV, would be treated well, but their exact status still remains unknown.
Tension on the Korean peninsula has heightened since the North conducted a long-range rocket test on April 5 despite repeated international warning. Earlier this week, North Korea said it would restart its nuclear program and quit international disarmament talks in protest of the U.N. Security Council’s condemnation of the rocket launch, which some say tested long-range missile technology.
Ties between the two Koreas have been strained since a pro-U.S., conservative government took office in Seoul last year with a tougher policy on the North. Pyongyang responded by cutting ties, halting key joint projects and significantly restricting border traffic.
The Kaesong complex has been considered a promising example of inter-Korean cooperation and a key source of hard currency for the North.
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