Skip to main content

No proof Kaesong cash funded North Korea arms programmes: South Korea expert panel

A visitor takes photo near a directional sign showing the distance to North Korea’s Kaesong city and South Korea’s capital Seoul at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
There was no evidence North Korea diverted wages paid to its workers by South Korean firms in a now-closed border industrial park to bankroll its weapons programmes, an expert panel appointed by Seoul’s Ministry of Unification said on Thursday.
The investigation by the panel reversed the contention by the previous South Korean government that most of the cash that flowed into the jointly run Kaesong complex was diverted to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.
South Korea laid the claim when it pulled out of the joint venture in response to the North’s launch of a long-range missile last year.
But in July, two months after liberal President Moon Jae-in was elected, a South Korean government official said there was no hard evidence to back up the assertion.
About 120 South Korean companies paid about double the $70 a month minimum wage in North Korea for each of the 55,000 workers hired in Kaesong.
The project resulted from the first inter-Korean summit meeting in 2000, when leaders of the two Koreas vowed reconciliation and cooperation.
Until its closure last year, it was the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean rapprochement amid frosty cross-border ties.
The decision to suspend the Kaesong project was “unilaterally and verbally” made by Moon’s predecessor one day after the missile test, without any formal discussions within the administration, the panel said.
“The presidential office inserted the wage-diversion argument as major grounds, yet without concrete information, sufficient evidence and consultations with related agencies, mainly citing defector testimonies that lack objectivity and credibility,” Kim Jong-soo, a priest who heads the panel, told a news conference.
“This impairs the decision’s legitimacy and could constrain our ground over a future restart of the complex, while hampering the companies’ rights to protect their assets due to the hasty pullout process.”
Moon has pledged to reopen the industrial park if there is progress on the North’s denuclearisation, but political tensions and Pyongyang’s aloofness have tied the president’s hands.









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

As many as 12 killed in New York’s deadliest fire in decades

More than 160 firefighters helped bring the blaze under control. (Source: Fire Department New York/Twitter) A massive fire ignited accidentally by a three-year-old boy swept through a five-story apartment building in New York, killing at least 12 people including a toddler and injuring four others in the deadliest blaze to hit the city in decades. The fire broke out around 6:50 pm (local time) yesterday on the first floor of the Prospect Avenue apartment in the Bronx borough of the city and spread quickly, officials said, adding that the cause of the blaze is under investigation. “We found that this fire started in a kitchen on the first floor,” fire commissioner Daniel Nigro said. “It started from a young boy, three and a half years old, playing with the burners on the stove. The fire got started, the mother was not aware of it – she was alerted by the young man screaming.” The boy’s mother fled with her two children, leaving the door to the apartment open – allowing t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ukraine crisis: Exchange of hundreds of prisoners takes place

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attends a ceremony to welcome prisoners of war (POWs), released after the exchange with pro-Russian separatists, upon their arrival at an airport in Kharkiv, Ukraine December 27, 2017. (Source: Reuters)  Ukraine and separatist rebels in the east of the country have exchanged hundreds of prisoners, in one of the biggest swaps since the conflict began in 2014. Around 230 people were sent to rebel-held areas in return for 74 prisoners who had been held by pro-Russia rebels in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, BBC reported on Wednesday. It was the first swap in 15 months. The release and exchange of prisoners was one of the points in the Minsk peace agreement, signed in 2015. The deal has stalled since and analysts say the swap does not signify wider progress. Both sides continue to hold other prisoners. The number of prisoners swapped was lower than initially announced after dozens of people who were meant to be returned to rebel-held terr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nepal declares ban on solo, blind and double amputee climbers from Everest

This ban is likely to irk solo mountaineers, who enjoy the challenge of climbing alone. In a bid to prevent accidents, Nepal has banned solo climbers from climbing its mountains, including Mount Everest, reported news agency AFP. Earlier on Friday, the cabinet declared revised regulations of the Himalayan nation’s mountaineering, where banning solo climbers from scaling its mountains was one of the key measures being flagged ahead of the 2018 spring climbing season. The cabinet also declared a ban on double amputee and blind climbers, even though Everest has drawn multitudes of mountaineers wanting to overcome their disabilities and achieve the formidable feat. “The changes have barred solo expeditions, which were allowed before,” Maheshwor Neupane, secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, told AFP. Neupane added that the law was revised to make mountaineering safer and decrease deaths. Earlier in April this year, an experienced...
Post a Comment
Read more