Lee Kang-woo (2nd R), head of the South Korean delegation, is interviewed in Paju, South Korea, on March 2, 2010. South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) started talks Tuesday to resolve problems hampering operations at their joint industrial park, the government said. (Xinhua/He Lulu)
SEOUL, March 2 (Xinhua) -- South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) wrapped up the morning session of the talks on Tuesday to resolve problems hampering operations at their joint industrial park, the government said.
Details of the talks have not yet released, and the two sides have not decided on when to start the afternoon session, according to South Korea's Ministry of Unification.
A group of South Korean officials crossed the border into the neighboring DPRK for the working-level contact in the border town of Kaesong where the industrial park is located.
"We will do our best to draw concrete and visible results from the talks to solve problems of the transportation, communications and customs systems there," Lee Kang-woo, head of the South Korean delegation, said in a briefing, referring to the three major issues that have hampered operations at the joint park.
The Seoul delegation is expected to push for using the Radio- Frequency Identification system in the DPRK to help speed up cross- border passage and allowing a day pass for people entering the industrial park.
Local media here said the use of cell phones and having access to the Internet inside the joint park might be part of the agenda.
The working-level contact came after weeks of exchanges over the venue and the date of the talks.
Some 110 South Korean companies are running factories in the joint industrial park employing about 42,000 DPRK workers, mostly producing labor-intensive goods.
The industrial complex is a long-standing but fragile symbol of inter-Korean cooperation whose operations have occasionally been threatened due to tense ties.
|
