South and North Korea will conduct a joint industrial survey in China or elsewhere in Asia next month to try to find an international model that can help develop their shared factory park, a senior official here said Thursday, according to Yonhap News. The joint trip, set for mid-December, may be a sign that the North intends to continue its conciliatory diplomacy toward South Korea despite a spate of recent decisions by Seoul that have angered Pyongyang.
"We have yet to set up a very detailed schedule, so it`s difficult to go into
specifics. But we are thinking of industrial parks in China and Vietnam," the top official at the Unification Ministry told reporters at a background briefing. The two Koreas will team up with about 10 people on each side for the survey, he added. North Korea recently agreed to hold the international survey, which was proposed by the South after payment disputes arose over the joint park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, the official said. The North`s months-long detention of a South Korean worker there had also raised tension. North Korea shifted to a more conciliatory stance in August, releasing the detained South Korean worker and lifting restrictions it had imposed on joint projects to protest Seoul`s hard-line policy.
But North Korean media recently resumed their vitriolic criticizing of the Seoul government, pointing to its prolonged suspension of a lucrative North Korean mountain tour and its participation in a U.N. resolution condemning the North`s human rights condition. The North called South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In-taek, who is in charge of inter-Korean relations, a "traitor" standing in the way of improving cross-border relations. The top official defended decisions by the Seoul government, saying its North Korea policy is flexible and that inter-Korean dialogue is quietly taking place out of public view.
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