North Korea allows envoys from South to come for talks after threat

Seoul - North Korea approved the entrance of South Korean diplomats for talks Tuesday concerning the neighbors' jointly run industrial park, three days after the North threatened to break off all contact with the South. Travel by diplomats from Seoul to Kaesong, the North Korean border town where the industrial park is located, was approved Monday, the South Korean Unification Ministry said.

The talks are to be the first by government officials from the two countries in 2010. They are to discuss how to further develop the park, where South Korean firms have set up factories that employ North Koreans.

The talks follow a threat Friday from Pyongyang to cut off all dialogue with Seoul and a vow to wage a "pan-national holy war of retaliation," after reports that South Korea had revised a contingency plan to deal with the potential collapse of the Stalinist regime. North Korea demanded an apology from the South.

The threat surprised Seoul after Pyongyang had agreed to Tuesday's talks, called for negotiations on the resumption of joint tourism projects and accepted a South Korean offer for food aid.

The two Koreas remain technically at war after an armistice, and not a peace treaty, ended the 1950-53 Korean War. Relations have been tense since conservative President Lee Myung Bak took office nearly two years ago.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304367,north-korea-allows-envoys-from-south-to-come-for-talks.html.