Ban would be the first UN chief to visit the factory park, which opened in 2004 in the town of Kaesong as the last major cooperation project between the Koreas. He would also be the first head of the UN to visit North Korea since Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1993.
Ban’s trip, on Thursday, comes as relations between the Koreas remain strained following the North’s continuation of missile and other weapons tests that South Korea views as provocation.
There have also been concerns about an escalation of violence in the North after South Korea’s spy agency said last week that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, had his defence chief executed in late April. Kim reportedly used an anti-aircraft gun to execute his minister for disrespectful behaviour, including napping during a military rally attended by the leader.
Ban told reporters on Tuesday during his trip to South Korea that he would spare no efforts in trying to help improve ties between the Koreas.
“The Kaesong project is a win-win model for both Koreas. It symbolises a good aim to tap the advantage of South and North Korea in a complementary manner,” said Ban, who visited the factory park in 2006, when he was South Korea’s foreign minister. “I hope my visit will provide positive impetus to further develop it and expand to other areas.”
Ban said that he would visit factories and meet North Korean workers, but that it had not been decided which North Korean officials he would meet.
Chang Yong-seok, an analyst at Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, said he was sceptical about whether Ban’s trip would bring any major breakthrough in relations between the rivals.
Chang said North Korea accepted Ban’s visit to the Kaesong complex because it could help lure foreign investment and revive its troubled economy. But, he said, “North Korea won’t welcome Ban coming to [the capital] Pyongyang with talks on its nuclear programme.”
Kaesong park opened during a period of warming ties between the Koreas and has been considered a test case for unification, pairing cheap local labour with South Korean knowhow and technology.
It has survived periods of animosity, including the North’s artillery bombardment of a South Korean island in 2010, while other cross-border projects, such as tours to a scenic North Korean mountain, remain deadlocked.
In 2013, however, the park’s operations were halted for five months after North Korea withdrew its 53,000 workers amid tension over the North’s torrent of threats to launch nuclear attacks on Seoul and Washington.
The complex’s future has been put into doubt again recently, with the two Koreas wrangling over Pyongyang’s push to raise the wages for North Koreans employed by South Korean companies there without consulting South Korea. The Kaesong complex is a rare, legitimate source of foreign currency for the impoverished North.
The Korean peninsula technically remains in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
