South Korean President Park Geun-hye Monday called for a "sustainable" agreement with North Korea on the jointly run Kaesong complex as a new round of negotiations begins between the two countries.
Park Geun-hye said the ongoing round of talks over the reopening of the factory park would be the gate for broader relations between the two sides.
"Though these working-level talks are focused on normalizing the Kaesong complex, we have to keep in mind that they will serve as an important basis for principles and frameworks for reconfiguring new relations between the South and the North," said Park Geun-hye, according to the YONHAP News agency.
"I hope the working-level talks will produce a meaningful and sustainable agreement," said Park.
The jointly-run factory park, which is located in North Korea's border town of Kaesong, was shut down last April following a joint military exercise between the U.S. and South Korea at the border.
Pyongyang initially pulled out its 53,000 workers in protest against the joint military drill and Seoul ordered its managers at the factory complex to leave immediately.
The closure of the factories took place amid high tensions over the Korean peninsula with almost a daily string of warnings back and forth between the two neighboring countries.
In recent months, international communities including the United Nations and United States strongly warned Pyongyang against its nuclear ambitions.
Despite warnings and threats from U.S., South Korea and China, Pyongyang held several missile and nuclear tests saying that these weapons were its main "pride."
China, which is Pyongyang's main ally, also distanced itself from North Korea as a result of pressure from the Washington government to press Pyongyang to up give its nuclear ambitions.
