North and South Korea will hold a seventh round of talks on Wednesday on reopening their joint industrial park in Kaesong, with a lot more than the future of the complex riding on the outcome.
With South Korea kicking off a military exercise with the United States next week, the result of the negotiations could determine whether the peninsula is sucked into another dangerous cycle of escalating tensions.
Similar joint exercises earlier this year were cited by Pyongyang as the main factor behind its decision in early April to effectively shut down the Kaesong industrial zone. The North initially barred access to the park, which lies 10 kilometers inside the North Korean border, and then withdrew its 53,000-strong workforce that keeps the 123 South Korean firms in Kaesong running.
After six rounds of talks on normalising operations resulted in little more than mutual mud-slinging, the process petered out and Kaesong’s future looked bleak. Then last week, just as Seoul announced it was going to start compensation payouts totalling USD 250 million to businesses impacted by Kaesong’s closure, North Korea proposed fresh dialogue.
With South Korea kicking off a military exercise with the United States next week, the result of the negotiations could determine whether the peninsula is sucked into another dangerous cycle of escalating tensions.
Similar joint exercises earlier this year were cited by Pyongyang as the main factor behind its decision in early April to effectively shut down the Kaesong industrial zone. The North initially barred access to the park, which lies 10 kilometers inside the North Korean border, and then withdrew its 53,000-strong workforce that keeps the 123 South Korean firms in Kaesong running.
After six rounds of talks on normalising operations resulted in little more than mutual mud-slinging, the process petered out and Kaesong’s future looked bleak. Then last week, just as Seoul announced it was going to start compensation payouts totalling USD 250 million to businesses impacted by Kaesong’s closure, North Korea proposed fresh dialogue.