North Korea’s state media briefly reported Saturday on the opening of a joint inter-Korean liaison office, a day after a ceremony was held to mark its official launch in the North’s border town of Kaesong.
“The north-south joint liaison office was opened in Kaesong Industrial Zone under the agreement at inter-Korean high-level talks for implementing the historic Panmunjom Declaration,” the Korean Central News Agency said in English. “Its opening ceremony took place on Friday.”
The leaders of the two Koreas agreed to launch a joint liaison office in their April summit to facilitate inter-Korean cooperation on various fronts. Its launch came days before they met in Pyongyang for their third summit.
Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung was named to serve as a co-head for the office, along with Jon Jong-su, a vice chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, a North Korean agency in charge of inter-Korean exchanges.
South Korea will station around 20 officials there, while the North will deploy 15-20 officials to the office.
The office was widely expected to be launched in August, but its opening was delayed amid Washington‘s anxiety that inter-Korean cooperation is progressing faster than its stalemated denuclearization talks with the North. (Yonhap)
