hankyoreh

By Choi Hyun-june and Song Chae Kyung-hwa, staff reporters

North Korea granted permission on Oct. 24 for South Korean lawmakers to visit the Kaesong Industrial Complex. It also gave notice that it was sending back six South Koreans who had been caught entering the country.

These conciliatory gestures could signal an easing of inter-Korean tensions, which have been at a fever pitch in recent months.

On Oct. 24, a senior Ministry of Unification official gave news of the approval granted for the lawmakers’ visit. “At around 9 o’clock this morning, North Korea notifies us through the Kaesong Industrial Complex’s inter-Korean committee offices that it was approving an Oct. 30 visit by members of the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

This comes eight days after the ministry sent a message on Oct. 16 expressing hope that the committee’s members would be allowed to visit Kaesong.

A total of 57 people applied to visit, including committee chair Ahn Hong-joon, 24 other lawmakers on the committee, and aides and expert advisors.

The lawmakers are scheduled to inspect the site and review ideas for support.

“It appears that they will be looking around the factories and meeting with people from the companies,” said a source in the office of lawmaker Chung Moon-hun, the ruling Saenuri Party’s secretary on the committee.

The senior Ministry of Unification official said the ministry would be “devoting its energies to making sure the visit takes place as scheduled so it can contribute the future-oriented normalization of the Kaesong complex.”

The complex reopened on Sept. 16, just over five months after its Apr. 9 shutdown. But conditions there remain poor, with a factory operation rate of under 50%. A briefing for foreign corporate investors that was planned to help the complex’s internationalization has been indefinitely postponed because of differences between North and South over issues related to transit, communications, and customs.

The president of a textile factory in the complex called the lawmakers’ visit “welcome news.”

“The complex is suffering from serious problems,” the factory president said. “It was closed for five months, and now its operation rate remains between 30% and 40%. Hopefully, the National Assembly and administration will consider practical measures rather than just offering superficial, Band-Aid measures.”

Meanwhile, North Korea also sent a notice the same in the name of its Red Cross committee chairman saying that six South Koreans arrested after entering the country illegally would be returned on the afternoon of Oct. 25 via Panmunjeom.

The South Korean government is currently unclear about their identities or the circumstances of their entrances to North Korea.

“In February 2012, North Korea said it had arrested four South Koreans and was questioning them, so there’s a good chance those four will be among them,” said a Ministry of Unification official.

The administration has made repeated attempts to confirm the identities of the four South Koreans, but North Korea has not responded to them. After collecting and identifying them, the government plans to have the relevant agencies question them on the circumstances of their entry.

Some have expressed high hopes that the conciliatory gestures from Pyongyang will ease tensions. But others cautioned about reading too much into them.

“I think the two measures need to be viewed separately,” said professor Kim Yeon-chul, a specialist in inter-Korean relations at Inje University.

“North Korea has no reason to reject the National Assembly members’ visit to the complex, since it’s an issue that interests them too,” Kim explained. “And it’s difficult to see any great significance in the return of the six South Koreans at a time when a hard line against the South is still very much present there.”

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