U.S. Envoy Visits Project in N. Korea

A top U.S. diplomat Friday visited a pilot industrial complex jointly run by the two Koreas in the communist North, the South’s Unification Ministry said.

Kathleen Stephens, principal deputy assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the industrial zone in Kaesong, said Unification Ministry spokeswoman Yang Jeong-hwa.

Despite expressing admiration for the lofty plans for Kaesong, Stephens said after her return to Seoul that ambitious goals for a joint economic zone run by the two Koreas would be difficult to realize unless the North abandoned its nuclear weapons development.

The North must show that it has made a “strategic decision” to comply with a September agreement in which it pledged to abandon the nuclear program in return for aid, security guarantees and progress toward normalized relations with the U.S.

About 15 companies are working at Kaesong, with plans for about 2,000 businesses to move in by 2012 -- combining South Korean management and know-how with low-cost North Korean labor.

The industrial complex, just north of the heavily fortified border separating the two Koreas, emerged as a hot issue between Seoul and Washington after the U.S. envoy on North Korea human rights, Jay Lefkowitz, recently raised concerns about alleged exploitation of workers.

South Korea has strongly denied Lefkowitz’s remarks and invited him to visit the complex to see the conditions for himself.

Lefkowitz recently agreed to the trip, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Friday from Washington, citing an unidentified South Korean official. No timing for his visit was given.

After her visit Friday, Stephens said that “it looked to be a very acceptable kind of factory work environment for the workers we saw there, both from North Korea and from the South.”