*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media
(NSI News Source Info) SEOUL, South Korea - August 14, 2009: Amid rising hopes of better ties between Pyongyang and Seoul, North Korea frees a South Korean engineer arrested in March at a joint industrial zone near the border. 
Yoo Seong-jin (C), a worker who was detained by North Korea, speaks to the media upon his arrival at the South Korean Customs, Immigration and Quarantine office, south of the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, north of Seoul, August 13, 2009, after he crossed the border. North Korea on Thursday released a South Korean worker it had held for nearly five months for allegedly insulting its leaders in a rare conciliatory gesture likely to ease tension between the rival states.
Yu Seong-jin, the engineer with Hyundai Group's North Korea business arm, was handed over to the South on Thursday.
Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters in Seoul that Yu was expected to cross the border Thursday evening. Yu, 41, worked at the Kaesong industrial zone near the volatile border and has been held in the North since late March for allegedly criticizing Pyongyang's political system.
The release comes after a visit to the North this week by the high-profile chairman of the Hyundai Group in an attempt to settle the issue.
The developments also comes just over one week after the North freed two US journalists following a meeting between former US president Bill Clinton and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang.
Tensions between North Korea and the US have been on the rise following Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests in May. Officials in Washington now say they are willing to hold direct talks with Pyongyang over its nuclear program.
The South and North are also involved in a heated dispute over Pyonyang's nuclear weapons program. The North has recently taken a more conciliatory approach toward its southern neighbors.
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