By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter



Information-Communication Minister Chin Dae-je, center, places a call to a guard at Dokdo, South Korea’s easternmost islets, during a ceremony to celebrate the resumption of private inter-Korean telephone services between the South and an industrial park at Kaesong, North Korea, Wednesday.
/Korea Times

South and North Korea Wednesday reopened private telephone services for the first time in the six decades since the cross-border phone link-up was cut in 1945, just after the nation’s liberation from Japan.
KT, the South’s top fixed-line telecom operator, will take charge of operating the 300 lines linking the South to the Kaesong Industrial Complex located north of the heavily-fortified Demilitarized Zone, a four-kilometer-wide buffer separating the South from North.

About 400 politicians and businessmen of the two Koreas took part in the ceremony in Kaesong to celebrate the historic but overdue connection. The southern delegation included Information-Communication Minister Chin Dae-je and KT president Nam Joong-soo.

``Following telephone and facsimile links, we need to talk with the North about expanding info-tech cooperation in such areas as postal service and high-speed Internet,’’ Chin said in a congratulatory message.

He added officials of the two countries will frequently meet face-to-face toward that end and KT chief executive Nam also articulated its commitment to expanding its presence in Kaesong.

``We aim to build a telecom center of 3,000 pyong (9,900 square meters) here to give our best shot in helping inter-Korean collaboration in communications,’’ Nam said.

The envisioned center is expected to be completed late next year and will house 10,000 telephone lines.

On top of the landline telephone and broadband applications, KT spokesman Hwang Dae-woon said the company hopes to launch mobile telephony services in Kaesong with the help of its wireless affiliate KTF.

In 1972, almost three decades after their separation back in 1945, the governments of the two Koreas resumed direct phone links across the border and currently maintain 35 lines. But this is the first telephone connection led by private companies since the division.

Nonetheless, the road to the private telephone link-up has not been easy.

The two Koreas reached a basic agreement to connect Seoul and the Kaesong industrial park in 2002 but they have disagreed about the price of the services.

After several negotiations, Pyongyang finally agreed in March to allow the services at 40 cents, approximately one sixth of the previous 2.3 dollars enabled through lines in Japan. KT planned to complete the inter-Korean connection in May.

However, an unexpected barrier emerged as the United States bans shipments of merchandise using more than 10 percent of U.S. parts or technologies to North Korea and other nations designated as hostile.

The policy prevented KT from transporting necessary telecom equipment to Kaesong until the U.S. gave a green light to the shipment last month.

The 66-million-square-meter Kaesong Industrial Complex, now in an early stage, is slated for completion in 2010 and is designed to accommodate 2,000 companies.

The Kaesong park is hailed as one of the most positive results of inter-Korean cooperation to have taken place after decades of hostility between the two Koreas following the Korean War,1950 to 1953.

voc200@koreatimes.co.kr