Seoul (AsiaNews) - Officials from North and South Korea held the seventh round of talks about reopening the Kaeseong joint industrial zone. This round comes after Seoul called for "final talks" on the matter. In the previous six meetings, Pyongyang wavered.
The complex, which is located near the Demilitarised Zone, houses 123 South Korean factories, which employed up to 50,000 workers from the North.
It was an important source of income for the devastated economy of the Kim regime, crushed by bankrupt financial policies and spiralling military expenditure.
Back in April, Pyongyang decided unilaterally to close the inter-Korean industrial complex as the last in a series of acts of provocation and propaganda that brought the peninsula to the brink of a new open conflict.
Since mid-July, the two governments have tried to find "common ground" to authorise the reopening, but without success.
South Korea's Catholic Church has repeatedly called for the reopening of the complex, defined by the Archbishop of Seoul "a symbol of peace and hope" for the future reunification of the country.
South Korea's chief delegate, Kim Ki-woong, said his team felt "tremendous responsibility" going into the meeting, adding "We will try our best to meet people's expectations," namely those of investors who put their money in the complex and lost about US$ 20 million so far.
An association representing those business interests wrote to President Park Geun-hye, asking her and her administration to take responsibility. The governments in both the North and the South should find a way to open the complex without hesitations.