Koreas to discuss reopening jointly run factory

SEOUL, South Korea -- North and South Korea Thursday agreed to hold talks on reopening a jointly run factory complex and other cross-border issues, after months of deteriorating relations.

The envisioned talks could help rebuild avenues of inter-Korean cooperation that were obliterated in recent years amid hard-line stances by both countries, though the key issue isolating the North from the world community -- its nuclear program -- is not on the agenda.

The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, in a statement carried by state media, said it is open to holding talks with Seoul on reopening the Kaesong complex just north of the Demilitarized Zone separating the countries. The complex closed this spring.

It also proposed talks on resuming reunions of families separated by war, and on resuming South Korean tours to a mountain resort in the North.

Pyongyang offered to let the South set the time and venue, and hours later South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae proposed meeting on all three topics in Seoul on June 12.

The agreement to meet could represent a change in North Korea's approach, or could simply be an effort to ease international demands that it end its development of nuclear weapons.

Lee Ji-sue, a North Korea specialist and professor at Myongji University in Seoul, said Pyongyang has been forced to pull back in large part because of China, its neighbor and ally.

North Korea's economy relies heavily on China, which like the United States wants North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions. Under American urging to pressure the North, Beijing has tightened inspections on cross-border trade, and its state banks have halted business with North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank.