SEOUL, June 7 (Yonhap) -- The two Koreas will discuss ways to prevent another suspension of their joint industrial park if they hold high-level talks next week, a Seoul official said Friday.

The park in the North's border city of Kaesong ground to a halt in early April when the communist country withdrew all of its 53,000 workers from the zone in anger over new U.N. sanctions against its regime and American-involved military drills in the South.

On Thursday, Pyongyang proposed holding inter-Korean government-level talks to discuss the issue along with other joint projects that have been suspended in recent years amid high tensions.

Seoul accepted the proposal and offered to hold minister-level talks in the South Korean capital next Wednesday. North Korea responded Friday by suggesting the sides first hold working-level talks on Sunday, and the South agreed.

"Preventing situations like the (suspension of the) Kaesong Industrial Complex will be an important item on the agenda of the talks," Seo Ho, a Unification Ministry official in charge of issues related to the complex, told a forum at the National Assembly.

"If the Kaesong Complex becomes internationalized, North Korea will feel more obliged to stick to agreements, so it is an administrative task of the current government to attract foreign businesses (to the zone)," he said.

Referring to Pyongyang's proposal for talks, Seo said it was a "brave" decision.

The nine-year-old industrial park, a key outcome of the first-ever inter-Korean summit in 2000, combines South Korean capital and technology with cheap North Korean labor to produce clothes, utensils, watches and other labor-intensive goods.

Later in the day, Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae met with the floor leaders of the ruling and main opposition parties and briefed them on the government's position on the inter-Korean talks.

"The problems surrounding the Kaesong Industrial Complex arose after the Park Geun-hye government took office, so we swiftly accepted the North's proposal for talks based on our position that the issue must be resolved with principle and a direction in policy," the minister said in his meeting with Rep. Choi Kyoung-hwan, the floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party.

Choi welcomed the government's move, saying he hopes the talks will help resolve the challenges facing the two nations.

In his meeting with Rep. Jun Byung-hun, the floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, the minister said the government will thoroughly prepare to ensure that the talks build trust between the Koreas.

Jun asked the minister for more government support in pursuing inter-Korean exchanges and protecting the assets of South Korean businesses with projects in North Korea.

hague@yna.co.kr

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