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SEOUL: South Korea said on Wednesday it has stopped citing a flagship joint project with communist North Korea as an example of "reform and openness" after the North's leader Kim Jong-Il bridled at the description.
The unification ministry, which handles relations with the North, "deleted such words – reform and openness – from its website this week", a ministry spokesman told AFP.
"It is in line with the (South Korean) president's remarks following a summit in Pyongyang," the spokesman said without elaborating.
The website previously said the Seoul-funded industrial estate in the North's border city of Kaesong would provide "a basis for future reform and openness" of the North.
President Roh Moo-Hyun held a rare summit with Kim in Pyongyang last week.
He said at the time he "could feel a sense of distrust and disapproval of our use of the terms 'reform' and 'opening' during the meetings" with Kim Jong-Il and de facto head of state Kim Yong-Nam.
The North wants Kaesong to be developed faster, Roh said, but does not view it the same way as the South.
The South sees Kaesong, which employs more than 13,000 North Koreans in 26 South Korean factories, as a flagship project to reform the North's moribund economy and ease the massive costs of any eventual reunification.
"We have often referred to the Kaesong complex as an example of reform and opening, but those terms reflect only the Southern point of view," Roh said last week.
During a visit to Kaesong last Thursday on his way home, Roh called it a place "where South and North Korea become one and work together for joint development, not a place where one is trying to force the other to reform and openness."
Supporters of Kaesong visualise it eventually becoming a North Korean version of Shenzhen, which led China's dramatic economic boom. But some industrialists there complain of customs regulations and other red tape.
Analysts say Kim sees full-scale economic reform as a threat to his hardline communist regime and its control over the crumbling centrally directed economy.
- AFP/so
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