By Chung Min-uck
Both ruling and opposition parties Wednesday opposed an immediate cutoff of water and power supplies to the North Korean border city of Gaeseong despite a possible shutdown of the inter-Korean industrial complex there.
“Water and electricity supplies should continue from a humanitarian perspective,” Rep. Hwang Woo-yea, chairman of the ruling Saenuri Party, said during a meeting of party leaders. “Although business operations at the Gaeseong complex have been effectively terminated, water and electricity there are also used by Gaesong residents.”
The opposition party echoed Hwang’s view.
“Continued supplies of water and electricity are required to protect the property of South Korean firms at Gaeseong and to leave room for the resumption of the industrial park,” said Rep. Park Ji-won, a political heavyweight and a member of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP), in a radio interview.
The government is considering cutting off the supplies following its decision to withdraw all of its workers from the zone on April 26, one day after Pyongyang rejected its offer for dialogue. North Korea withdrew all of its workers from the zone on April 4, and suspended the operation of the factories there. Seoul has been providing electricity and water to Gaeseong to help run South Korean factories in the complex. It now plans to sever the power and water supplies once the remaining seven South Koreans leave the zone.
According to government sources, the last group of South Koreans staying in Gaeseong to settle overdue wages and corporate tax claims are unlikely to return home soon due to the need to iron out minor differences.
The Saenuri chairman also urged North Korea to resolve the problem through dialogue and allow essential South Korean staff to freely visit the complex. The former DUP floor leader, while praising President Park Geun-hye’s offer for dialogue, said the government was “too hasty to draw back its offer after just one day, which failed to give North Korea enough time to make a choice.”
The government on Wednesday reaffirmed its earlier stance that North Korea should take conciliatory steps for normalization of the stalled complex.
“Resumption of the Gaeseong complex depends entirely on what kind of choice the North makes,” Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said at a news conference Wednesday. “The North should retract its unreasonable measures.”
The suspension of the Gaeseong park was one of a string of steps Pyongyang took in anger at annual joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises and toughened United Nations sanctions adopted after the North’s third nuclear test in February.
The complex was set up when reconciliation between the two Koreas boomed following the first-ever summit of the two Koreas in 2000. Cross-border ties have frayed over the past few years, and the factory park remained the last joint project between the two Koreas.