North Korea said yesterday it would halt tours of its historic city of Kaesong and stop cross-border train service with South Korea starting next week because of Seoul’s hardline stance toward the communist nation.
North Korea’s army also said it would “selectively expel” South Koreans from a joint industrial zone in Kaesong, but stopped short of closing the South Korean-run factories that are a key source of hard currency for the impoverished nation.
Yesterday’s announcement laid out the first concrete measures the North planned to take in implementing its threat to restrict cross-border traffic with the South starting on Monday 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, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
“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 were never “empty talk.”
Separately, North Korea sent a series of messages to the South confirming the planned measures, said Seoul’s Unification Ministry, which is responsible for relations between the two nations.
One message, addressed to South Korean companies operating at Kaesong, said the North would “guarantee” their business activities, though the number of company staff allowed to remain in the zone would be cut, the ministry said.
South Korean business leaders met yesterday with North Korean officials to discuss the border restrictions.
The North also sent a message to Hyundai Asan Corp, the main operator of the Kaesong city tours and other cross-border pro-jects, saying the tours would be suspended and that any resumption of joint projects depends on Seoul.
Hyundai Asan had no immediate comment yesterday.
Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said the South Korean government was holding a meeting to discuss the North’s announcement.
Relations between the two Koreas have been tense since conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul in February with a pledge to change the South’s policy toward the North.
He said he would be different from his liberal predecessors, accusing them of being too soft on their nuclear-armed neighbor.
North Korea suspended reconciliation talks and threatened to cut any remaining ties with the South 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 Hyundai Asan organizing tours to the city’s historic downtown.
Yesterday’s announcement meant the last South Korean tour of Kaesong would take place on Sunday, and that cross-border traffic to the industrial park would be severely restricted.
A third inter-Korean project — tours to North Korea’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 be expelled next month.
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