A general
meeting of an inter-Korean committee established to oversee the development of the
Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) finally took place on the morning of June 26th,
six months since the last such meeting in December 2013. However, few results
emerged from a full day of discussion.
South Korea was represented at the meeting by a six-man
delegation led by the head of the Inter-Korean Cooperation District Support Team, Lee Kang Woo, while Park
Cheol Soo, the vice director of North Korea’s Guidance Bureau for the
Development of the Central Special Economic Zone, led a five-person North
Korean delegation.
Early yesterday morning before the meeting,
Lee had told reporters, “It has been a while since the last meeting, so this will be an opportunity for us to take a comprehensive look at the
steps necessary for the developmental normalization of the KIC. We will do our
best to address [issues concerning passage, customs and communications], which have fallen behind schedule despite the agreement we came to last year.”
He added that his South Korean delegation planned to push the North to allow full
introduction of radio-frequency identification (RFID) for entry and exit from
the KIC via the Inter-Korean Transit Office. The system was tested successfully
in January.
Following the meeting, Lee said that the South had indeed placed the emphasis on the full operation of the electronic entry and exit system, swift provision of
Internet services and issues surrounding passage, customs and communications,
the so-called “three tongs”.
“We emphasized the importance of implementing
those things we had come to an agreement on,” Lee told reporters, referring back to the agreement forged late in 2013.
As expected, however, the North placed the focus
elsewhere, making a demand for higher wages for KIC workers and
pressing Seoul to ensure full payment of taxes owed from the three months prior to the complete shuttering of
the complex last spring. The North also pushed once again for the removal of the May 24th Measures, a package of unilateral sanctions put in place after the
Cheonan sinking in early 2010.
“While we mostly raised issues surrounding
the ‘three tongs,’ the North side presented labor and wages,” Lee explained. As a result, “We were not able to reach any conclusions.”
It was in
the closing stages of the Kaesong meeting that North Korea, with Kim Jong Eun apparently in
command, launched three short-range missiles from an East Sea coast location near Wonsan.
