Park instructs Unification Ministry to propose talks with NK over Gaesong

President Park Geun-hye instructed the unification ministry Tuesday to propose talks with North Korea about bringing South Korean products and raw materials out of a suspended joint industrial complex in the communist nation.

The factory park in the North's border city of Gaesong has been suspended since early April as North Korea withdrew all of its 53,000 workers for 123 South Korean-run factories there. As Pyongyang barred South Korean supplies from entering the complex, Seoul also withdrew all of its workers from the zone.

"I hope the unification ministry will propose talks with North Korea so as to bring back finished products and raw and subsidiary materials left behind at Gaesong as early as possible and reduce damage for companies," Park said during a Cabinet meeting.

Park also expressed regret about North Korea's suspension of the complex.

"The Gaesong Industrial Complex needs revolutionary changes for internationalization, not just normalization. In order for that to happen, safety devices for the promises North Korea made with the international community should be guaranteed," she said.

The amount of losses Gaesong's suspension caused South Korean investors is unclear, but estimates vary from around 1 trillion won ($910 million) to around 3 trillion won. The government already pledged last week to provide more than 300 billion won in emergency funds to help Gaesong investors.

Gaesong's suspension was one of a string of steps that Pyongyang has taken in anger over American-involved annual military exercises in the South and a new U.N. sanctions resolution adopted after its third nuclear test in February.

The complex was the last-remaining symbol of once-booming inter-Korean rapprochement.

It has also been a key source of hard currency for the impoverished North as South Korea usually pays the North about $90 million annually in worker wages.