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NK officials enter empty Kaesong business complex

Posted January. 15, 2011 12:37,   

한국어

On a cold Wednesday morning when the mercury dipped to minus 10 degrees Celsius, North Korean officials entered the inter-Korean economic cooperation office at the Gaeseong (Kaesong) Industrial Complex near the inter-Korean border.

They went to the office to resume operations at the complex, which had been suspended since May last year after a North Korean torpedo attack sank the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan.

Their arrival came four days after Pyongyang`s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland unilaterally announced the resumption of the office’s operations on Jan. 8.

The officials soon left the office, however, given the lack of South Korean counterparts and the South’s Korea Electric Power Corp. shutoff of power to the building.

A South Korean government official said Friday that the supply of electricity and water has remained cut off since May after Seoul rejected Pyongyang’s plan to unilaterally resume operations.

A staff member of a South Korean company operating at the complex said the North Korean officials disappeared after learning that Seoul not only did not send officials to the office but also cut off power.

“I don’t think they left the office for good. Maybe they’re staying elsewhere waiting for the South’s response,” he said.

Upon learning that they could do nothing without power from the South, the North Korean director of the office immediately sent a notice to Seoul expressing regret and urging a quick resumption of operations.

The staff member said, “Perhaps the office director’s true purpose was to ask the South to supply power.”

Yang Moon-soo, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said, “The power for the industrial complex is supplied entirely by the South’s Korea Electric Power Corp. and the economic cooperation office is no exception.”

“Even the power used to bring water from a nearby reservoir is provided by the South. So it’s safe to say the Kaesong complex depends on South Korea for all of the energy it uses.”



kyle@donga.com