N Korea Offers South Guarantees to Reopen Industrial Zone, Warns Japan

Local Editor

North Korea on Wednesday offered South Korea guarantees aimed at breaking deadlocked negotiations on reopening a joint industrial zone, and proposed a fresh round of talks next week.

As well as allowing South Korean firms full access to the Kaesong complex, which closed in April amid soaring military tensions, the North will guarantee the attendance of its workers and the safety of all South Koreans at the complex, the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea [CPRK] said in a statement.

Crucially, it also proposed that both North and South prevent any similar closure of Kaesong in the future by ensuring that operations are never again "affected by any situation in any case".
If the South responds to what the CPRK called "this bold and magnanimous stand", the committee said the North would agree to a seventh round of working-level talks on Kaesong's future on August 14.
The statement, carried on the North's official Korean Central News Agency [KCNA] was the North's first response to South Korea's request, made on July 28, for a "final" set of talks.

On Sunday, the South had said it was "reaching the limit" of its patience on the issue. Earlier Wednesday, it announced it would begin paying out $250 million in compensation to the South Korean companies forced to abandon their factories in Kaesong.

The announcement was widely seen as presaging a decision permanently to shut down all operations at the complex, which lies 10 kilometers across the border in North Korea.

Meanwhile, North Korea warned on Wednesday that Tokyo was following a militarization program that had already crossed "the danger line".
A commentary by the [KCNA] highlighted a Japanese Defense Ministry paper published last month that stressed the need to boost the strength and range of forces required to protect Japan's far-flung territories.

The paper specifically called for a "comprehensive containment capability" to counter ballistic missile threats from North Korea.
"This is nothing but a broad hoax by Japan to justify its moves to turn it into a military giant which have gone beyond the danger line," KCNA said.
"Japan's assertions are too unreasonable and illogical to justify its sinister aim," the agency said.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team