*** INTER-KOREAN RELATIONS

Inter-Korean Trade Surges 36 Percent This Year

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Despite rising cross-border tension, the trade between South and North Korea surged 36 percent from a year ago to US$320 million in the first two months of this year, government data showed on March 16.

   The data provided by the Korea Customs Service indicated that the trade via the inter-Korean industrial complex has not been affected by tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

   South Korea slapped sanctions on the North in May 2010 in retaliation for the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship earlier that year, though it keeps intact the complex in the North's western border city of Kaesong.

   The complex, a key outcome of the inter-Korean summit in 2000, marries South Korean capital and technology with cheap labor from the North. It is now home to more than 120 South Korean small and medium-sized companies.

   Tensions have flared anew in recent weeks as the two Koreas traded militaristic rhetoric against each other over Seoul's defamation of the dignity of North Korea's new leader Kim Jong-un and his late father, former leader Kim Jong-il.

  
------------------------

Koreas Agree to Hold Joint Prayer Meeting in June in Kaesong

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- South and North Korean Christian leaders have agreed to hold a joint prayer meeting in the socialist country in June, a South Korean reverend said on March 20, amid fresh tensions over Pyongyang's planned rocket launch.

   The two sides tentatively plan to conduct the meeting in a chapel inside the joint industrial complex in the North's western border city of Kaesong on June 12, Rev. Han Gie-yang said.

   The complex, a key outcome of the inter-Korean summit in 2000, marries South Korean capital and technology with cheap labor from the North. It is now home to more than 120 South Korean small and medium-sized companies.

   The date is timed for the anniversary of the summit that called for better ties and a set of cross-border economic projects.

   Officials from the North's Christian Federation of Korea welcomed the planned prayer meeting, saying churches in the two Koreas should take actions to help ease tensions and promote peace on the divided Korean Peninsula, Han said.

   Han made the comment after returning home from a trip to the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang where he said he had discussions lasting three hours with three North Korean officials of the Christian Federation of Korea on March 19.

   Nine more South Korean Christian leaders were to hold a similar meeting with their North Korean counterparts in Shenyang on March 20, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry.

   The ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said five other Christian leaders from the South plan to meet with their North Korean counterparts in the Chinese city on March 21 and 22.

   The development came amid heightened tensions over North Korea's plan to launch a rocket in mid-April to put an earth observation satellite into orbit as part of what it says is a peaceful space program.

   South Korea and the United States condemned the planned launch as a provocative act that would violate U.N. resolutions banning the North from all activities related to its ballistic missile program.

   On March 19, the North said the launch of the working satellite is an issue fundamentally different from that of a long-range missile, saying that the planned launch poses no problem.

   In November, 10 South Korean Christian leaders traveled to Pyongyang for a joint prayer meeting with their North Korean counterparts in a church, according to Lee Chang-hwie, an official of Seoul-based National Council of Churches in Korea.

   The South Korean council sent 153 tons of flour to North Korea's Christian Federation last week through the Amity Foundation, a Chinese aid group, Lee added.

   North Korea has a Catholic church and two protestant churches as well as a Russian Orthodox church, but critics say they are for propaganda and open only when foreign visitors attend services.

   The impoverished country instead runs a massive cult of personality around its late leader Kim Jong-il and his family. Kim died of a heart attack in December and was succeeded by his youngest son, Kim Jong-un.

  (END)