South Korea said Sunday it will extend a "final offer" for talks to North Korea to discuss the normalization of a suspended inter-Korean industrial complex in the North's border town of Kaesong. The Kaesong Industrial Complex has remained shuttered since early April as the North unilaterally withdrew its workers from South Korean companies there amid heightened tensions on the peninsula. The two sides have held six rounds of negotiations to reopen the factory zone, but to no avail as they failed to agree on preconditions to resuming operations there. Seoul has demanded safeguards to prevent any recurrence of a unilateral shutdown, while Pyongyang has insisted on an immediate resumption. "The government will make a final proposal for talks with North Korea to discuss (the Kaesong complex issue)," Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said in a statement quoted by the South Korean news agency "Yonhap."
