S Korea asks for talks with North

South Korea asks for talks with North Korea over removing raw materials and finished products from the joint industrial zone closed following months of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

President Park Geun-Hye instructed the Unification Ministry on Tuesday to offer North Korea discussions about Kaesong industrial complex.

The industrial site was launched inside North Korea in 2003 to boost ties between the two neighbors. There are 123 South Korean companies in the complex, employing both South and North Korean workers.

Pyongyang blocked access to the site and withdrew its 53,000 employees last month. South Korea also pulled out the last of its workers on May 3.

“I want the Unification Ministry to propose talks with North Korea so that the firms can reduce losses by taking out finished products and raw materials, left behind at Kaesong, at an early date,” Park said in a cabinet meeting.

Seoul has paid 300 billion won (USD 270 million) in emergency compensation to investors in Kaesong who had to shut down their firms.

The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of escalating military rhetoric following the participation of nuclear-capable US B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers in recent joint military exercises with South Korea.

Pyongyang has warned that if Washington and Seoul launch a preemptive attack, the conflict “will not be limited to a local war, but develop into an all-out war, a nuclear war.”