UN chief Ban Ki-moon to visit North Korea industrial zone

Seoul: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will visit the Kaesong industrial complex just north of the inter-Korean border on Thursday, he told a media briefing, according to Yonhap news.

The Kaesong industrial complex, a special economic zone a few kilometres north of the heavily fortified border, is jointly run by North and South Korea.

Ban will be the third serving secretary general to visit the north, and the first since Boutros Boutros-Ghali crossed through the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas, at Panmunjom, in December 1993. 

Kurt Waldheim visited the North Korean capital of Pyongyang in 1979 and again in 1981.

North Korea is under U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and missile programmes. 

In December, the U.N. General Assembly urged the Security Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court after a U.N. inquiry detailed wide-ranging abuses in the isolated country comparable to Nazi-era atrocities.