Hong visits Gaeseong Industrial Complex amid lingering tensions


South Korea’s ruling party will push for the government to ease its North Korea policy stance, a top conservative politician here said Friday after his one-day trip to a joint factory park in the North.

“After this trip, I will demand the government take an ‘especially flexible’ approach as to the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, among other things,“ Hong Joon-pyo, chairman of the Grand National Party told reporters after returning to the South. “The complex is an important project for South and North Korea to develop into a joint economic community and also a crucial point on the road to a peace community.”

He added that he has called for the government to change its policy stance on North Korea from strict reciprocity to flexible reciprocity.

Accompanied by three other party members, Hong had visited the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, a move that raised hopes of having the two Koreas restore their once-active economic exchanges.

The party leader said he did not meet with any North Korean officials during the visit.

“I could consider making a visit again depending on whether North Korea takes a sincere attitude,” Hong said.

The Gaeseong Industrial Complex, which combines South Korean capital and know-how with cheap North Korean labor, has been a symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. Currently, more than 46,000 North Koreans work as employees at about 120 South Korean-run factories there.

The two Koreas, technically still at war, saw their relations plunge into the worst state in decades following Pyongyang’s attacks against Seoul last year that killed a combined 50 South Koreans.

Apparently in response to South Korea’s incumbent Lee Myung-bak administration’s hard-line policies, North Korea torpedoed a Seoul warship last March and bombarded a border island eight months later, killing soldiers as well as civilians.

The incidents left the two not talking for several months, but they have been slowly resuming dialogue over how to restart the stalled six-nation denuclearization talks. Seoul has also been approving of nongovernmental groups’ aids to North Korea.

Inspecting the Gaeseong complex and meeting with representatives of South Korean firms there, the ruling party chief said he would ask the government to repair the roads between Seoul and Gaeseong, and build a fire station and needed medical facilities.

He also pointed out the need to reactivate inter-Korean communications concerning the industrial complex for smooth operation.

By Shin Hae-in (hayney@heraldcorp.com)