North and South Korea yesterday agreed to allow South Korean firms to start operating this year in a North Korean industrial park being jointly built near the inter-Korean border, a joint statement said.
The agreement, struck at the close of a three-day bilateral meeting here yesterday, came after six-nation talks on the stand-off over North Korea's nuclear program last week in Beijing appeared to make some tentative progress.
PHOTO: REUTERS
It also marked the first time that the two Koreas agreed on the timing of operations by South Korean companies in the Kaesong industrial park, 70km north of Seoul.
North Korea offered the land for the park, with one area currently being developed by South Korea's Hyundai Asan Co, which hopes to complete a demonstration complex in the first half of this year, the statement said.
Hyundai Asan welcomed the agreement as a "breakthrough" on the project which has been delayed by tensions over North Korea's nuclear drive since the groundbreaking ceremony took place in June last year.
North Korea has claimed that South Korea was dragging its feet on the Kaesong park and other inter-Korean economic projects at the behest of the US.
Speaking after talks with South Korea's new Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that Washington and Seoul were "quite satisfied" with the six-nation talks.
The Beijing talks, the second held between China, the US, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia, ended with an agreement to establish working groups and to meet again before the end of June.
Ban later told journalists that the US did not oppose the start of operations in the Kaesong industrial park and South Korea's supply of power there.
A spokesman for Hyundai Asan said three or four small- and mid-sized firms were expected to move into the demonstration zone by the end of June.
The South will provide the Kaesong park with its much-needed electricity supply "on a commercial basis."
South Korea's chief delegate to the talks, Vice Finance and Economy Minister Kim Gwang-lim, said power could come either directly from the South or from power generation facilities built in Kaesong by a South Korean firm.
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