North and South Korea agreed in principle to re-open their joint industrial complex idled three months ago by heightened tensions on the peninsula, dpa cited officials as saying Sunday. Seoul's Ministry of Unification said the two sides were able to find middle ground on various issues in 16 hours of talks, Yonhap news agency reported. It said southern businessmen with investments in the Kaesong Industrial Complex will conduct inspections starting Wednesday with the help of engineers. Pyongyang agreed to discuss ways to implement safeguards to prevent a future shutdown of the park. South Korea made clear Pyongyang must take responsibility for the disruption in operations and guarantee such problems will not be repeated, Yonhap said. It also wanted the right to permit the retrieval of finished goods from Kaesong investors hit hard by the work stoppage. North Korea wanted operations to resume as soon as possible at the complex that was created as a result of a historic 2000 summit between the leaders of the two Koreas, the report said. Suh Ho, director of the ministry's exchange and cooperation bureau, said some areas of negotiation would be dealt with at future talks. The complex about 10 kilometres north of the border provides jobs and foreign exchange to the North, and cheap labour to southern industries. It has been closed since Pyongyang pulled out all its 53,000 workers at the end of April. The last group of about 800 South Korean managers left the zone on May 3.
