* Talks begin after 12-hour fight over format, venue * South Korea pressed for release of worker * North Korea wants to drop low-wage deal (Adds Seoul statement on talks paragraph 5) By Lee Jae-won PAJU, South Korea, April 21 (Reuters) - Political rivals North and South Korea held rare, brief and acrimonious talks on Tuesday over a joint factory park as global powers tried to prevent Pyongyang from restarting its nuclear arms plant. The talks, delayed for nearly 12 hours by a dispute over the venue and format, produced no breakthrough and increased friction over the Kaesong park, the last remaining major area of cooperation between the states technically still at war. Regional powers' frustration with North Korea has been growing, and earlier this month it defied South Korea, Japan and the United States and launched a rocket in what was widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test. The Kaesong park, where South Korean firms use cheap North Korean labour and land to make goods, was once hailed as a model of economic cooperation but is now the focus of mounting tension. (For a factbox on Kaesong, please click on [ID:nSEO308698]) Seoul pressed the North Koreans in talks that lasted less than a half hour to release a South Korean worker they have held for nearly a month at Kaesong on suspicion of insulting North Korea's communist system, according to a South Korean government statement. North Korea rebuffed calls from South Korea's nine-member economic delegation to discuss the worker and threatened to end low-wage deals that allow South Korean firms to pay Korean workers at the plant a minimum monthly wage of $70. "We will start negotiations to reconsider the previous contract related to the Kaesong Industrial Park," North Korea's delegates were quoted as saying in the statement. North Korea, angered by the decision of President Lee Myung-bak after he took office a year ago to cut a steady flow of aid to his impoverished neighbour, has disrupted work at the factory enclave to put pressure on Seoul to drop its hard line. Despite the North's moves, the number of firms at Kaesong continues to grow due to its low costs and was at 93 at the end of February, employing nearly 39,000 North Korean workers. The two Koreas had two sessions of military talks in October. SHUT THE PARK? North Korea has all but suspended dialogue with Lee's government and dubbed him a traitor to the Korean nation for tying aid, which has helped prop up the North's wobbly economy, to progress Pyongyang makes in giving up nuclear arms. But the North may now be even more dependent on the money generated by the Kaesong park because the United Nations has called for tightened sanctions on Pyongyang after its defiant rocket launch earlier this month, widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test that violated U.N. resolutions. In response, Pyongyang said it would boycott six-party nuclear disarmament talks, restart a plant that makes bomb-grade plutonium that was being dismantled under a deal reached at those talks, and threatened war with the South if it joined a U.S. initiative to halt the proliferation of illicit weapons. Some analysts said North Korea may threaten to shut down the Kaesong park if South Korea joins the Proliferation Security Initiative because it could harm the North's arms trade, an important source of cash. But few expect Pyongyang to actually shut down the park because it would harm its already tarnished reputation as an international business partner, lead to the loss of a steady stream of income and force the North to find jobs for tens of thousands of its displaced workers. The latest nuclear rumblings from the North have not upset financial players used to the North's threats, but worries may increase if the North restarts its ageing Yongbyon nuclear plant and tries to produce more plutonium for bombs. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Pyongyang this week, the ministry said. Interfax news agency said he will try to persuade the North to return to the sputtering nuclear talks with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Additional reporting by Jack Kim and Miyoung Kim and Jung Heejung in Seoul and Conor Sweeney in Moscow; editing by Alex Richardson and Tim Pearce)
Anti-North Korea protesters drag a defaced portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during a protest in front of foreign ministry office in Seoul April 20, 2009. Dozens of conservative protesters ...
