Staff Reporter
South and North Korean officials will meet today at the joint Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea but Seoul observers expect little from the meeting.
The South has been seeking to raise the issue of a South Korean worker detained in the North but the two sides have yet to finalize agenda to be put on the bargaining table.
``It is highly likely that the North would unilaterally notify the South of its demand that benefits produced at the Gaeseong complex be readjusted,'' said Professor Yang Moo-jin at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
During their first talks in April since President Lee Myung-bak's inauguration last February, the North asked the South to ihike wages of North Korean workers and renew the rental accord even before the expiration of the initial contract.
Professor Kim Yong-hyun at Dongguk University in Seoul expects the North to heighten pressure on the South.
``North Korea may detail its demand on wages and rents,'' he predicted.
He forecast that the North will refuse to discuss detainee issue again.
The 44-year-old Yu was arrested in late March for allegedly making derogatory comments on the communist North and attempting to entice a North Korean female worker to defect to the South.
The North has refused to allow him to meet with South Korean officials and lawyers.
During the April talks, the North shunned the detainee issue, claiming they are not from agencies related to the issue.
Five North Korean delegates are scheduled to discuss the operation of the complex with their South Korean counterparts, including chief negotiator Kim Young-tak.
Concerns are growing that today's meeting may end up with no conclusion on the release of the detained worker.
The two Korea remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
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