남북연락사무소 개소 한달... '유•무선, 대면접촉으로 북한과 24시간 연락채널 유지'
A month has passed since the two Koreas opened their joint liaison office.
South Korea's unification ministry says... Seoul and Pyeongyang are maintaining a 24-hour communication channel through phones, walkie-talkies and face-to-face contact.
Oh Jung-hee tells us more.
Seoul and Pyeongyang opened their joint liaison office at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in mid-September.
A month has passed since the grand opening... and now, Seoul is confident that the two Koreas have succeeded in setting up a communication channel that runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Kim Chang-soo, the South Korean vice director of the contact office, said the inter-Korean facilities is different from liaison offices run in the past by other countries.
That is -- divided nations would usually have their liaison offices in each other's capitals, but the two Koreas are running an office together as a "joint" one and have it in one building.
There are three direct phone lines connecting the two sides' offices and residences.
South and North Korean officials can also speak to each other through walkie-talkies... and at night, they can go over to each other's residence for emergency communications.
In early October, when preparing for the joint event in Pyeongyang, Kim says, the North Korean side came over to the South Korean residence to call for a meeting... and on one day, they met 7 times.
He says, it's meaningless to keep track of the number of encounters and meetings... because they meet so often.
There is a series of inter-Korean talks planned at the joint liaison office.
Coming up in late October... are talks on forestry cooperation, medical care, and sports exchanges.
To organize these and to hold more in the future, the vice director says he hopes to develop the office as a solid communication channel that doesn't just deliver messages, but enables deep discussions.
Then hopefully, the two Koreas can ultimately work towards establishing resident representative offices in each others' capitals.
Oh Jung-hee, Arirang News.
