North Korea frees South Korean detainee

Writer: AFP

Published: 13/08/2009 at 08:00 PM

North Korea Thursday freed a South Korean worker it had detained since March, raising hopes of better cross-border relations after 18 months of bitter hostility from the communist state.

South Korean vehicles wait to pass a checkpoint at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in Paju in July 2009. The Kaesong estate near the west coast is the last major inter-Korean joint project still operating. North Korea has freed a South Korean worker it had detained since March, raising hopes of better relations after 18 months of bitter hostility from the communist state.

Yu Seong-Jin came home across the tightly guarded frontier in the evening.

"I'm very happy to return home safely," he told a crowd of reporters at the border, thanking all those who worked for his release.

After a brief medical check the engineer for the Hyundai Asan company was to be reunited with relatives waiting near the border, Yonhap news agency reported.

Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jung-Eun had travelled to the North Monday to seek Yu's release, days after former president Bill Clinton went to Pyongyang to meet leader Kim Jong-Il and win a pardon for two American journalists.

Yu, 44, was earlier handed over to Hyundai Asan officials at the Seoul-funded joint industrial estate in the North's border town of Kaesong, where he was detained on March 30.

The North had held Yu incommunicado since then, accusing him of insulting its political system and urging a northern worker at the estate to defect.

Inter-Korean relations have been icy since a conservative government took office in Seoul in February 2008 and took a tougher line on cross-border relations.

International tensions have also risen this year following the North's latest nuclear and missile tests and a US-led drive for tougher sanctions.

However, North Korean officials signalled to Clinton that they want better relations, according to US officials.

An association representing South Korean firms in Kaesong said it hoped Thursday's release "will improve frozen ties between South and North Korea and rejuvenate the Kaesong industrial complex."

Hyun had earlier extended her stay in the North until Friday, heightening speculation she would meet leader Kim as she did in 2007.

The North is still detaining the four-member crew of a South Korean squid fishing boat which sailed across the border on July 30 due to a faulty navigation system.

It told the South Thursday an investigation was still continuing.

Analysts say the North's priority is improving relations with the United States but to do this it must also mend ties with South Korea to some extent.

"The release will be a turning point in frozen ties between the two Koreas," Dongguk University professor Koh Yu-Hwan told AFP. "It reflects Pyongyang's belief it cannot improve relations with Washington without easing cross-border tensions.

"North Korea also badly needs economic help from South Korea to overcome economic difficulties and food shortages, which have worsened this year due to international sanctions and regional tensions."

The Seoul presidential office welcomed the release but said its policy would not change.

"It seems a bit too late, but it is a relief that Yu is finally returning to his family," said spokesman Lee Dong-Kwan.

"The government will continue to maintain its policy consistency toward North Korea."

Some 40,000 North Koreans work for 105 South Korean companies at Kaesong, which was developed mainly by Hyundai.

The auto, shipbuilding and construction giant pioneered business exchanges with the North, opening its first venture -- the Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast -- in 1998.

But its projects have been hard hit by the worsening relations.

The Kaesong estate is the last one still operating. Its future has become increasingly clouded since Pyongyang demanded huge extra wage and rent payments from Seoul and detained the engineer.

Tours to Mount Kumgang have been suspended since July 2008, when North Korean soldiers shot dead a Seoul housewife who strayed into a poorly marked military zone.

Hyun's visit was partly aimed at restarting the Kumgang tours, officials say.

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