North and South Korea allegedly tried to hold official contact for the first time since the launch of the Lee Myung Bak administration back at the dawn of 2008, but the two sets of delegates did not actually meet due to divergent views on location and agenda. <\/p>\n
There were seven advance liaison meetings from morning to evening at the Guidance Bureau for Developing the Central Special Economic Zone (the North Korean part of the Kaesong industrial zone management organization) aiming to arrange the venue, agenda items, participants etc. but the battle of nerves wrapped up after producing just one result; agreeing that the meeting place should be right there, at the Guidance Bureau for Developing the Central Special Economic Zone. <\/p>\n
Since March 30 the South has made clear its willingness to hold the meeting in the North\u2019s zone if the Guidance Bureau allows the South to contact the Hyundai Asan employee being held there on suspicion of trying to encourage a North Korean worker to defect. However, it is unknown whether this point has been accepted by the North. <\/p>\n
Among the issues under discussion during the preliminary meetings, the last round of which started at 8:35 P.M., the North instructed the South to re-examine the whole system of privileged conditions that operate within the Kaesong Industrial Complex. North Korea stated its intention to rewrite the real estate lease contract so as to make South Korean companies pay rent four years earlier than they are required to now, and to raise the wages of North Korean workers to the level of Chinese workers. <\/p>\n
Although this issue needs officially to be agreed on and adjusted by both sides, the North effectively demanded it, backing it up with threats to start examining existing contracts and negotiations with Southern enterprises, thus giving the South little choice but to accept it.<\/p>\n
Upon hearing the plan, the South Korean liaisons had to report their position with haste. The middleman reportedly had a statement prepared in advance, but the North forbade him from reading it, so it could only be submitted instead. <\/p>\n
The statement requested that the North withdraw immediately from provocative acts which could cause tension. Additionally, the South stated that the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI; which the South is proposing to join) is related to comprehensive values that human beings need to pursue for their own security, and that the North-South Marine Transportation Agreement should be applied around the Korean Peninsula. The South finally emphasized in the statement that Hyundai Asan employee Mr. Yoo, who has been in detention in the Northern zone of the Kaesong Complex since March 30, must be transferred to the South. <\/p>\n
However, according to a source in the Ministry of Unification, a North Korean liaison late came to the South Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex Management Committee and gave the statement back. <\/p>\n
Thus, in the first contact with the North since the launch of the Lee Myung Bak administration, the South only listened to the North\u2019s one-sided reports and allegations, without being allowed to respond or react in any meaningful form. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North and South Korea allegedly tried to hold official contact for the first time since the launch of the Lee Myung Bak administration back at the dawn of 2008, but the two sets of delegates did not actually meet due to divergent views on location and agenda. There were seven advance liaison meetings from morning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"featured_media":8793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n