S. Korean Delegation Departs for Meeting in NK

A South Korean delegation left for North Korea Tuesday for the first official inter-Korean dialogue in over a year to discuss a joint industrial complex amid frozen political relations, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Pyongyang proposed the talks last week with an ambiguous statement that it had an "important notice" to announce regarding the complex on its soil, where a South Korean worker is being held for a fourth week.

Seoul was hoping to hear about the employee of Hyundai Asan, a South Korean company that operates the complex, but prepared for all potential scenarios as the political climate remains jittery.

Tensions rose sharply after the North launched what it called a satellite on April 5, a move the U.N. Security Council quickly condemned as violating a U.N. resolution barring its ballistic activity. Pyongyang protested by withdrawing from nuclear disarmament talks and expelling international monitors from its main nuclear facility.

Risking further confrontation with Pyongyang, Seoul said it plans to enlarge its role in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) aimed at interdicting the flow of weapons of mass destruction.

For the first official inter-Korean talks during the Lee Myung-bak administration, a seven-member delegation led by Kim Young-tak, director general of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex Project Bureau under Seoul's Unification Ministry, crossed the border at 8:45 a.m. for the meeting at the joint complex. Kim did not respond to reporters' questions at the Inter-Korean Transit Office.

Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said Monday that Seoul will try to ensure the dialogue is "helpful for the safety of our citizens and the stable development of the industrial complex," an apparent reference to the detained worker.

A positive outcome of the talks, which watchers say is unlikely, would be that the North announces his release.

The employee, in his 40s and identified only by his surname Yu, was detained by the North on March 30 on charges of criticizing Pyongyang's political system and trying to incite a female North Korean worker to defect. The North has so far not allowed access to the worker.