North Korea will lift curbs on border crossings this week, the latest in a series of peace overtures towards South Korea, officials said yesterday.
Traffic to a Seoul-funded joint industrial site at Kaesong, just north of the border, will be normalized starting today, the South’s unification ministry said.
The North, protesting at the policies of Seoul’s conservative government, imposed strict border curbs last December — reducing the number of daily crossings to six from 23 and expelling hundreds of South Korean staff from Kaesong.
The restrictions hampered business at the estate, where some 40,000 North Koreans work for about 100 South Korean firms.
The other major joint project, the Mount Kumgang resort, virtually closed down after North Korean soldiers in July last year shot dead a Seoul housewife who strayed into a military zone.
Seoul suspended tours by its citizens that had earned the impoverished North tens of millions of dollars.
The communist state has also been hit with tougher UN sanctions after a rocket launch and nuclear test this year.
In its first conciliatory move the North early last month August pardoned and freed two US reporters after a visit from former US president Bill Clinton.
In talks with a visiting Hyundai executive, whose group runs the cross-border businesses, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il expressed willingness to restart tourist trips and ease the border controls.
The North has also freed five detained South Koreans and agreed to restart family reunions.
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