Rhee Bong-ju, South Korea's vice minister of unification, announced Thursday the officials will be stationed in a new South Korean liaison office in Kaesong, a North Korean border city about an hour's drive from Seoul.
Mr. Rhee points out it is the first permanent government office South Korea has established in North Korea since the peninsula was partitioned. About 10 North Korean officials are expected to work at the Kaesong office.
Communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea fought a war from 1950 to 1953, and spent the rest of the 20th century as bitter foes, at opposite ends of the Cold War. However, contacts between the two capitals have steadily increased since a historic summit
