South Korea has started permitting its nationals to contact North Koreans without restrictions, as long as these interactions are declared in advance, according to Unification Minister Chung Dong-young on Thursday.
Chung said he signed off on the disposal of ministry guidelines governing declarations of contacts with North Koreans the previous day, speaking to reporters on his way to the office earlier in the day, News.Az reports citing The Korea Times.
Such guidelines had served as the basis for the government to reject civilians' bids for contact with North Korean nationals, contributing to the near-freeze in private-level inter-Korean exchanges in recent years.
The change allows ordinary South Koreans to engage freely with North Koreans, provided they declare such contacts to the ministry in advance, a requirement stemming from the fact that the two Koreas technically remain at war, with only an armistice having halted the 1950-53 Korean War.
"This (permits) full-range contacts at the private level," Chung said. "Free contacts between the peoples make mutual understanding possible, which can then lead to coexistence."
The minister said a National Security Council meeting scheduled for early August will include a review of a potential adjustment to the large-scale South Korea-U.S. military exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield.
Earlier this week, Chung told reporters that he plans to propose adjusting the joint military exercise, scheduled for mid-August, to President Lee Jae Myung as part of efforts to improve ties with North Korea.
Later Thursday, Chung expressed his intent to reopen the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and apologized for the government's 2016 decision to close the joint industrial complex in the namesake border city in North Korea.
Chung made the remarks as he met with a group of businesspeople who had operated factories at the joint industrial complex before former President Park Geun-hye shut it down following the North's fourth nuclear test and a series of weapon tests.
"The day Gaeseong reopens, the fate of the Korean Peninsula will change," Chung said. "As one of the government representatives, I sincerely apologize over the damage occurred following the closure."
Participants welcomed Chung's remarks, noting how it marked the first official apology by a high-level government official and expressed hope that the factory park will reopen, the unification ministry said.
Chung, who served as the unification minister from 2004-05, had led the project to build the inter-Korean industrial complex.
The factory park, once a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, was home to more than 120 small South Korean plants that produced garments and other labor-intensive goods by employing more than 54,300 North Korean workers.
