남북연락사무소 개소 한달... '유•무선, 대면접촉으로 북한과 24시간 연락채널 유지'<br /><br />A month has passed since the two Koreas opened their joint liaison office.<br />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.<br />Oh Jung-hee tells us more. <br />Seoul and Pyeongyang opened their joint liaison office at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in mid-September.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />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. <br />There are three direct phone lines connecting the two sides' offices and residences.<br />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.<br /> 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.<br />He says, it's meaningless to keep track of the number of encounters and meetings... because they meet so often. <br /><br />There is a series of inter-Korean talks planned at the joint liaison office.<br />Coming up in late October... are talks on forestry cooperation, medical care, and sports exchanges.<br />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.<br />Then hopefully, the two Koreas can ultimately work towards establishing resident representative offices in each others' capitals.<br />Oh Jung-hee, Arirang News. <br />
