U.S. views Kaesong project still necessary despite criticism

The U.S. government does not support the immediate closure of an embattled inter-Korean industrial complex, according to an official, despite claims that it is a failed effort at rapprochement that fuels the North Korean economy.

North Korea has shut down, at least temporarily, the industrial park at Kaesong, hailed as a model of cooperation between the two Koreas.

Some say that's good.

Chun Yung-woo, a former South Korean national security adviser, has openly said Kaesong has served as an obstacle to efforts for the denuclearization of North Korea.

"We don't need to call for the close of the Kaesong industrial complex," he said in a forum in Seoul earlier this week. "A good way is to shutter it when North Korea demands that."

The Wall Street Journal also said in an editorial that it's time to say goodbye to Kaesong.

But the State Department disagrees.

"Closing Kaesong would not help the DPRK (North Korea) achieve its stated desire to improve its economy and better the lives of its people," a department official told Yonhap News Agency on background Friday. "We are monitoring the situation closely and remain in close consultation with the South Korean government.".

The North withdrew all of its workers from the complex and blocked entry of South Korean managers earlier this week. Pyongyang said it is considering whether to shut down the industrial park.

Seoul has proposed a dialogue with Pyongyang on the Kaesong issue and ways to reduce tensions.

"U.S.-DPRK relations cannot fundamentally improve without an improvement in inter-Korean relations," the State Department official said.

The U.S. government does not usually make public its clear position on the persistent pros and cons of the Kaesong project, which opened in 2004, four years after a historic inter-Korean summit.

More than 50,000 North Korean are employed there by some 120 South Korean firms, which enjoy tax, insurance and other benefits.

U.S. officials are apparently well aware of some advantages from the combination of the North's cheap labor and the South's capital. Kaesong provides a channel for daily communications between the two sides and it may serve as a starting point for educating North Koreans on capitalism.

They also are aware of persistent criticism that it provides Pyongyang with another way of earning cash for nuclear and missile programs.

North Korea gains about US$90 million in wages each year despite a web of U.S. and U.N. economic sanctions on the nation. 

A diplomatic source said both South Korea and the U.S. seem to agree that now is not a good time to close the Kaesong complex as it would harm efforts to diplomatically resolve the current military tensions.

"Especially for South Korea's conservative Park Geun-hye administration, it's politically burdensome," the source said. "It would not want to face the blame for the termination of the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation."

(Yonhap News)