North Korea has proposed inter-Korean contact on April 21 in Kaesong, saying that it has “an important thing to inform,” it was belatedly confirmed Saturday.
Government sources said that the North Korean authorities conveyed the proposal to the Seoul side last Thursday via the channel of the industrial complex in the North Korean border town of Kaesong.
As a result, the South plans to send officials of the Unification Ministry to the North on April 21, the sources said.
This is the first time that government officials will visit North Korea since the Lee Myung-bak government was inaugurated in February last year.
Public attention has focused on what has made the North to propose an inter-Korean meeting.
Analysts said that now there are two sensitive issues involving the two Koreas. One is that an employee of Hyundai Asan working at the industrial complex has been detained by the North Korean authorities for 20 days as of today and another is that the Seoul government is weighing when it will announce its full participation in the proliferation security initiative (PSI), a U.S.-led scheme to seek to stem trafficking in weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the wake of the launch of the satellite by the North.
"The Central Special Development Guidance Bureau governing the Kaesong Industrial Complex on the North side notified the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee, the South side of the complex management, that ‘the committee chairman would come to Kaesong with officials of the South Korean government on April 21 as they have ‘an important thing’ to i! nform,” one source said.
“ The North side did not elaborate on the proposal further,” the source said, adding that “it is unclear whether it will be about the fate of the detained Hyundai employee or the operation of the Kaesong Industrial Complex.”
The Unification Ministry is analyzing why the North has made such a proposal, while discussing how to handle it in a meeting presided over by Minister Hyun In-taek.