8.13 PM Thursday, 28 March 2024
  • City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
  • Dubai 04:57 06:11 12:27 15:53 18:37 19:51
28 March 2024

N Korea serious about December 1 shutdown

Published
By AP

North Korea said on Monday it will shut down tours of the city of Kaesong and halt cross-border train service with South Korea starting next week because of Seoul’s hard-line stance on the communist nation.

The North’s army also said it will “selectively expel” South Koreans from a joint industrial zone in Kaesong – but stopped short of shutting down the South Korean-run factories that are a key source of hard currency for the impoverished nation.

Monday’s announcement laid out the first concrete measures the North plans to take in implementing its threat to restrict traffic to the South starting December 1, and marked a new escalation of tension between the two countries still technically at war.

“The South Korean puppets are still hell-bent on the treacherous and anti-reunification confrontational racket,” the North said in a message to the South, according to North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency.

“The prospect of the inter-Korean relations will entirely depend on the attitude of the South Korean authorities,” the message said, adding that the North’s threats are never “empty talk”.

Separately, the North sent a series of messages to the South confirming the planned measures, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.

One message, addressed to South Korean companies operating at Kaesong, said the North will “guarantee” their business activities, though the number of company staff allowed to remain in the zone will be cut, the ministry said.

South Korean business leaders were meeting Monday with North Korean officials to discuss the border restrictions.

Relations between the two Koreas have been tense since conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul in February with a pledge to change policy on the North. He said he would be different from his liberal predecessors, and accused them of being too soft on their communist neighbour.

North Korea suspended reconciliation talks and threatened to cut any remaining ties with Seoul after Lee took office.

Despite the chill in government-level ties, civilian exchanges have continued, with South Korean-run factories continuing to operate in the industrial complex in Kaesong, and a South Korean firm operating tours to the city’s historic downtown.

Monday’s announcement means the North will shut down South Korean-run tours of Kaesong’s ancient and cultural sights, enforce stricter border control for traffic connected to the Kaesong industrial park.

A third landmark inter-Korean project – tours to the North’s scenic Diamond Mountain – were suspended after the shooting death of a South Korean tourist in July. The KCNA report said some South Koreans still working at Diamond Mountain would also be expelled next month.

The North also said it will halt train service between the South and the Kaesong industrial complex – a symbolic rail line that was one of the first inter-Korean projects to emerge from a warming of relations under past South Korean administrations.

Kaesong is home to more than 80 South Korean factories that employ about 35,000 North Korean workers.

The city is just north of the border dividing the two countries, which technically remain at war because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.