North Korea stays silent on Seoul’s talks offer on Kaesong

North Korea remained silent Thursday on South Korea’s proposal for “final talks” to resolve all outstanding differences and reopen their joint industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, the government said. Seoul made the final dialogue offer earlier this week after six rounds of working-level talks in July ended without the two Koreas reaching agreement on preconditions to resuming operations at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, according to (Yonhap) news agency. The communist country said it had no message to give to the South regarding the dialogue offer when opening contact was made via the inter-Korean communication line that runs through the neutral truce village of Panmunjom, according to Seoul’s unification ministry. Thursday marks the fourth day of the North maintaining its silence on the matter since the offer was made. Seoul’s Minister of Unification Ryoo Kihl-jae on Sunday urged the North to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible and warned that failure to do so could force the South to take “grave” measures. The government has not elaborated on what actions it would take, although many have speculated that the country may close down the factory park or, at the very least, turn off its power and water supply. The policymaker, moreover, pointed out to lawmakers that the reasons bilateral talks on normalization have not made real progress is due to the lack of trust shown by the North on installing safeguards that will prevent another shutdown of the factory park in the future. The ongoing work stoppage may have caused loses up to 1.05 trillion won to the South Korean companies with factories at the border town. Despite claims by some media outlets that predicted Seoul will make its move on Kaesong next week, policymakers here have steadfastly said no deadline has been set for a response from the North. Pyongyang also threatened that the industrial park can be taken back by its military or the North can move to operate the factories left behind by itself