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S. Korean businessmen calls to restrain anti-DPRK leaflets spread

Xinhua, March 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

South Korean businessmen running factories in the Kaesong Industrial Complex on Wednesday called for the South Korean government to restrain the scattering of leaflets against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to resolve the issue on a wage hike in the inter-Korean factory park.

A group of about 10 South Korean businessmen traveled to the DPRK's border town of Kaesong, where some 120 South Korean firms are operating factories and hiring around 53,000 DPRK workers, earlier in the morning.

Their visit came after the DPRK unilaterally notified South Korea of raising the minimum wage for DPRK workers in the Kaesong industrial zone from 70.35 U.S. dollars to 74 dollars starting from March. The March wage will be paid on April 10.

"If the anti-DPRK leaflets scattering is restrained, the wage issue on the Kaesong industrial complex will be easily resolved," Chung Ki-sup, chief of the council for South Korean firms operating factories in Kaesong, told reporters before heading to Kaesong.

Chung said the DPRK's unilateral decision was at the core of this issue, but he noted that the bigger cause of this problem was the stop of inter-Korean talks caused by the dispersion of anti- DPRK leaflets.

He said that the delegation of businessmen will explain its position when they meet with officials from the DPRK, noting that the wage issue of the Kaesong industrial zone will be easily resolved if the planned anti-DPRK leaflets scattering is restrained.

South Korean civic groups announced a plan to float the anti- DPRK leaflets across the inter-Korean border around March 26, the fifth anniversary of South Korea's Cheonan warship sinking.

Park Sang Hak, chief of the Fighters for a Free North Korea ( FFNK), will lead the scattering along with five other conservative civic groups. The FFNK is composed mostly of "defectors" from the DPRK.

About 500,000 leaflets, denouncing the DPRK regime, and some 10, 000 copies of "The Interview," a film featuring a fictional plot to assassinate top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, will be sent via hot air balloons to the DPRK across the inter-Korean land border around March 26.

Regarding this, South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol told a press briefing that it would not be appropriate to link the leaflets dispersion issue with Seoul's response to the DPRK's unilateral decision on the wage hike. Endi