Seoul notifies Pyongyang of its consent to hold Kaesong negotiations

South Korea on Thursday has officially notified North Korea of accepting Pyongyang’s proposal to hold the seventh round of the inter-Korean working-level talks on the Kaesong industrial complex. The written notification was handed over to North Korea at the Panmunjom border checkpoint in the demilitarized zone. The document is directed to North Korea’s chief delegate Pak Chol Su on behalf of South Korean Unification Ministry’s official in charge of joint inter-Korean zones Kim Ki Woong. The South Korean government has simultaneously started preparations for the negotiations on normalizing the work of the industrial park that are scheduled for August 14. South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae on Thursday held a meeting of the heads of the ministry’s departments to discuss the strategy of the forthcoming negotiations. “It looks like North Korea has generally taken a more future-oriented stance on the talks,” a spokesman for the Unification Ministry said in this regard. He declined to give details on the ongoing preparations for the talks, saying only that the government will go to the negotiations hoping that “the forthcoming round of the Kaesong talks will become final.” “We are taking all the possible steps to prepare for the complex’s reopening,” the ministry official emphasised.