By Chung Min-uck
South and North Korea agreed Tuesday to allow South Korean technicians and engineers to stay overnight at the suspended Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC) in the communist country to make repairs during their second round of GIC committee meeting held at the border city of Gaeseong.
"The North has accepted the South's request of having South Korean workers in charge of checking infrastructures to stay at the GIC," said an official from Ministry of Unification. "The South offered to do so because of the restored military hotline that would guarantee the safety of our workers there."
The two sides agreed to restore a hotline on the west coast during a GIC subcommittee meeting last week which has remained severed since March amid heightened inter-Korean military tensions.
Following the agreement, around 30 South Korean officials from the ministry, KT Corp., Korea Electric Power Corp. and Korea Water Resources will start their stay at the park to start repairing the infrastructures from Tuesday, according to the ministry.
All South Korean personnel withdrew from the GIC since early May.
In their second round of committee meeting, the ministry official said the two sides generally wanted the complete opening of the factory park and there was no discord in regards to calls for the progressive development of the Gaeseong park. However some differences exist when it comes to specifics, hinting that negotiations need to be carried out on dispute settlement and arbitration, as well as communications and travel issues.
Seoul has always insisted that before any resumption of operations take place, safeguards need to be set up to guarantee that the complex will not be shuttered down for political or military reasons, while Pyongyang has advocated an immediate reopening.
The negotiations are part of a landmark agreement reached on Aug. 14 to normalize operations at the GIC. It outlined the creation of the joint committee and four sub-committees.
The inter-Korean industrial park has been shut down for five months following North's threat to wage a war rebelling against U.N. sanctions imposed after it launched a nuclear test on Feb. 12.
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