The head of South Korea's governing Uri Party embarked Friday on a one-day trip to an inter-Korean industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong that has been questioned by the United States following North Korea's first-ever nuclear weapon test last week.
Ruling party Chairman Kim Geun-tae crossed the heavily fortified border around 9 a.m. with a 41-member delegation comprising six other legislators from his party, party officials and journalists, Kim's office said in a statement.
"The chairman and his delegation plan to personally inspect working conditions" of South Korean companies operating there, it said.
The delegation also plans to attend a ceremony marking the second anniversary of the establishment of the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee there, the statement said.
The joint committee is considered a North Korean entity since it was established under a North Korean law governing the joint industrial complex, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry. But the committee mainly consists of South Korean officials, 34, and only five North Korean representatives.
The visit comes amid U.S. suspicions that the inter-Korean business project, along with a tourism program to a resort on North Korea's Mount Geumgang, may be funneling large amounts of hard currency to the communist state's weapons-related programs.
Top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said while traveling here Wednesday that he understood the purpose of the Kaesong project, which he said "is trying to deal with a longer-term issue of economic reform" in North Korea, but cast doubts over the Mount Geumgang tourism program, saying he does not see its purpose "in the same light."
Washington has long asked Seoul to maintain a close watch on the inter-Korean economic projects to make sure profits, mainly North Korean workers' wages, do not find ways to the North's weapons-related programs.
The request quickly became a demand, although still tacit, that Seoul reduce or suspend its economic cooperation for Pyongyang after the communist regime announced early last week that it had conducted a nuclear bomb test.
"We will see what the South Koreans decide to do about their activities in general with North Korea," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Washington Tuesday when asked about what she thought about the inter-Korean business projects.
On Thursday, Rice denied putting pressure on the South Korean government following her meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon in Seoul.
"I did not come to South Korea, nor do I go any place else, to try to dictate to governments what they ought to do," the U.S. secretary said in a joint press briefing on her talks with Ban.
Seoul has reportedly offered to suspend its government subsidies for people, mainly students and people with physical disabilities, traveling to Mount Geumgang.
When asked at the joint press briefing whether Washington was satisfied with the step, Rice did not respond directly but said, "Everyone should take stock of the leverage that we have to get North Korea to return to the six-party talks and negotiate seriously over the dismantlement of its nuclear weapons program."
North Korea has stayed away from the nuclear disarmament talks since November, citing what it calls U.S. hostility toward it.
The talks also involve South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States.
Seoul, Oct. 20 (Yonhap News)
Ruling party chairman visits controversial inter-Korean industrial complex |
