Korean KoonAng Daily, Lee Eun-joo
Officials from South and North Korea secretly met twice last year to discuss the joint development of rare earth resources in South Hwanghae Province, on the western coast of North Korea, the South's state-run Korea Resources Corporation (Kores) said yesterday.
"After receiving permission from the [Ministry of Unification], our officials visited the North twice last year—in September and November—to study the condition of a graphite mine," Kores said in a statement.
"At the time of on-going discussions, the North gave us samples of rare earth minerals dug up from the area and we conducted an internal analysis."
According to the report, Kores officials met with their counterparts from the North's National Economic Cooperation Federation at Kaesong Industrial Complex and had working-level talks on jointly digging up rare earth minerals in North Korea.
The federation gave four different samples of rare metals to Kores during their second meeting and after analyzing the samples, the two groups were to meet for a third time to discuss the economic benefits of developing the mine. . .View Full Article