Thursday, June 6, 2013

Here's some better news from the North

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North and South Korea on Thursday agreed to hold talks on reopening a jointly run factory complex and other cross-border issues, after months of deteriorating relations and a day before a U.S.-China summit in which the North is expected to be a key topic.

The envisioned talks could help rebuild avenues of inter-Korean cooperation that were obliterated in recent years amid hardline stances by both countries, though the key issue isolating the North from the world community - its nuclear program - is not up for debate.

The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, in a statement carried by state media, said it is open to holding talks with Seoul on reopening the Kaesong complex just north of the Demilitarized Zone separating the countries. The complex closed this spring.

It also proposed talks on resuming reunions of families separated by war, and on resuming South Korean tours to a mountain resort in the North.

Pyongyang offered to let the South set the time and venue, and hours later South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae proposed meeting on all three topics in Seoul on June 12.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye welcomed the North Korean agreement to government-level talks that Seoul had proposed in April.

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