Reuters (Hat tip DPRK studies)
2/26/2007
Senior officials from South and North Korea resume talks on Tuesday, seven months after dialogue broke down in acrimony over Pyongyang’s missile tests.
Following are key points in the ties between the two:
STILL AT WAR
– An armistice ending the 1950-53 Korean War dominates the relationship between the two Koreas. Nearly 1.2 million North Korean soldiers and South Korea’s 680,000 troops remain in a tense military standoff despite political and commercial ties that have warmed since 2000.
– The two have enough missiles and artillery pointed at each other to largely destroy major cities on both sides of the Korean peninsula.
POINTS OF EXCHANGE
– An industrial park in Kaesong just a few minutes’ drive from the heavily-fortified border is home to 21 companies employing about 12,000 North Korean workers.
– About 1.4 million South Koreans have visited the Mount Kumgang resort in the North just above the border on the east since the tours began in 1998. Roughly a quarter of a million made the visit in 2006 even as tension spiked following the North’s missile and nuclear tests.
– About 102,000 people crossed the border last year, not including Kumgang tourists and most of them South Koreans visiting the North for business. The total exchange of people was 269,336 as of the end of 2006.
TRADE
– Cross-border trade was $1.35 billion in 2006 up from $1.05 billion a year ago, largely from the strength of the Kaesong industrial park.
HUMANITARIAN AID
– South Korea has supplied between 200,000-350,000 tonnes of fertiliser a year to the North since 2000.
– It has also shipped up to 500,000 tonnes of rice a year to the North in the form of low-interest, long-term loans. Food aid has been suspended since the North’s missile tests in last July.
REFUGEES, PRISONERS OF WAR AND ABDUCTEES
– South Korea believes more than 1,000 of its people are still alive in the North either as civilian abductees or as prisoners captured during the Korean War.
– North Korea has said 10 South Korean POWs and 11 civilians were alive there.
– More than 1,000 North Koreans each year have fled hunger and persecution in the North and sought refuge in the South. In the first six months of last year, 854 arrived in the South for a total of 8,541. (Source: South Korean Unification Ministry, Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee, Reuters)
