ID :
32003
Mon, 11/24/2008 - 21:21
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/32003
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N. Korea suspends Kaesong tours, historic train link
By Shim Sun-ah
SEOUL, Nov. 24 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said on Monday it will suspend tours to Kaesong, halt cross-border rail services and halve the number of South Koreans residing in a joint industrial complex in the same North Korean city in protest at Seoul's tough policy toward Pyongyang.
The North will also eject more South Korean personnel and vehicles from the joint
Mount Geumgang resort, according to a statement by the North's military carried
by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.
All the retaliatory measures will be go into effect on Dec. 1, the statement said.
However, North Korea decided to ensure the operations of South Korean firms in
Kaesong since they should not be a "scapegoat" of the current tension, according
to a separate letter sent to the firms and unveiled by Seoul officials.
Eighty-eight small-sized South Korean garment and other labor-intensive plants
were operating in Kaesong, located just north of the heavily armed border, as of
the middle of this month. The businesses employ more than 36,000 North Korean and
1,200 South Korean workers.
Pyongyang had warned earlier this month that it would restrict overland passages
across the inter-Korean border, without elaborating on the exact moves it would
take. Pyongyang closed its Red Cross mission and direct phone links at the truce
village of Panmunjom after the warning.
The statement said Monday's announcement is the "first step to cope with the
prevailing grave situation."
Inter-Korean relations have soured since the conservative South Korean President
Lee Myung-bak took office in February. Lee has vowed that the expansion of
inter-Korean projects will only follow North Korea's nuclear disarmament. The
North has expelled all South Korean government officials from the resort and the
industrial complex a month after the government's launch.
South Korea suspended tours to the resort mountain immediately after a North
Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean housewife who was touring the resort.
"The South Korean puppets are still hell-bent on the treacherous and
anti-reunification confrontational racket," the statement said.
In the two different letters sent to the South's private Kaesong Industrial
District Management Committee and South Korean plants in Kaesong, North Korea
also announced a plan to halve the number of South Korean workers there,
according to Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman for Seoul's Unification Ministry that
handles cross-border affairs.
North Korea, however, decided to ensure industrial activities by the plants since
it does not want them to be a scapegoat of Seoul's "reckless confrontational
policy" and in consideration of financial difficulties of the mostly small-sized
firms, the letters said.
The North said in the other letter to the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency
that the first-ever inter-Korean joint office in Kaesong would be closed and all
remaining South Korean staffers there will be forced out.
North Korea is especially upset at Seoul's reluctance to carry out a slew of
cross-border economic projects that were agreed upon in the historic summits of
2000 and 2007. Those projects would require massive South Korean investment in
the impoverished communist state.
North Korea has also protested the spreading of anti-Pyongyang leaflets by South
Korean activist groups. South Korea's large-scale war exercises with the U.S.
military and the South's participation as a sponsor of the U.N. resolution on
North Korea human rights this year further agitated the relations.
The first step would also include "strictly restricting" border crossings by all
South Koreans into the two joint areas for discussing economic cooperation and
"more strict order and discipline" for the passage and entry to those areas, the
military statement said.
Stringent sanctions will follow any violators of the measures, it added.
"The prospect of the inter-Korean relations will entirely depend on the attitude
of the south Korean authorities," the statement warned, stressing that the North
Korean military never makes empty talk.
The North's announcement came on the same day when the chiefs of the South's
plants operating in Kaesong visited the North Korean city for talks with North
Korean officials. Topics and the North Koreans attending the meeting were not
known.
The South Koreans were accompanied by heads and other senior members of the
private Kaesong Management Committee and their industrial interest body.
The outcome of the meeting will be released after they return from the one-day
trip, according to the Unification Ministry spokesman.
sshim@yna.co.kr
(END)
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SEOUL, Nov. 24 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said on Monday it will suspend tours to Kaesong, halt cross-border rail services and halve the number of South Koreans residing in a joint industrial complex in the same North Korean city in protest at Seoul's tough policy toward Pyongyang.
The North will also eject more South Korean personnel and vehicles from the joint
Mount Geumgang resort, according to a statement by the North's military carried
by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.
All the retaliatory measures will be go into effect on Dec. 1, the statement said.
However, North Korea decided to ensure the operations of South Korean firms in
Kaesong since they should not be a "scapegoat" of the current tension, according
to a separate letter sent to the firms and unveiled by Seoul officials.
Eighty-eight small-sized South Korean garment and other labor-intensive plants
were operating in Kaesong, located just north of the heavily armed border, as of
the middle of this month. The businesses employ more than 36,000 North Korean and
1,200 South Korean workers.
Pyongyang had warned earlier this month that it would restrict overland passages
across the inter-Korean border, without elaborating on the exact moves it would
take. Pyongyang closed its Red Cross mission and direct phone links at the truce
village of Panmunjom after the warning.
The statement said Monday's announcement is the "first step to cope with the
prevailing grave situation."
Inter-Korean relations have soured since the conservative South Korean President
Lee Myung-bak took office in February. Lee has vowed that the expansion of
inter-Korean projects will only follow North Korea's nuclear disarmament. The
North has expelled all South Korean government officials from the resort and the
industrial complex a month after the government's launch.
South Korea suspended tours to the resort mountain immediately after a North
Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean housewife who was touring the resort.
"The South Korean puppets are still hell-bent on the treacherous and
anti-reunification confrontational racket," the statement said.
In the two different letters sent to the South's private Kaesong Industrial
District Management Committee and South Korean plants in Kaesong, North Korea
also announced a plan to halve the number of South Korean workers there,
according to Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman for Seoul's Unification Ministry that
handles cross-border affairs.
North Korea, however, decided to ensure industrial activities by the plants since
it does not want them to be a scapegoat of Seoul's "reckless confrontational
policy" and in consideration of financial difficulties of the mostly small-sized
firms, the letters said.
The North said in the other letter to the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency
that the first-ever inter-Korean joint office in Kaesong would be closed and all
remaining South Korean staffers there will be forced out.
North Korea is especially upset at Seoul's reluctance to carry out a slew of
cross-border economic projects that were agreed upon in the historic summits of
2000 and 2007. Those projects would require massive South Korean investment in
the impoverished communist state.
North Korea has also protested the spreading of anti-Pyongyang leaflets by South
Korean activist groups. South Korea's large-scale war exercises with the U.S.
military and the South's participation as a sponsor of the U.N. resolution on
North Korea human rights this year further agitated the relations.
The first step would also include "strictly restricting" border crossings by all
South Koreans into the two joint areas for discussing economic cooperation and
"more strict order and discipline" for the passage and entry to those areas, the
military statement said.
Stringent sanctions will follow any violators of the measures, it added.
"The prospect of the inter-Korean relations will entirely depend on the attitude
of the south Korean authorities," the statement warned, stressing that the North
Korean military never makes empty talk.
The North's announcement came on the same day when the chiefs of the South's
plants operating in Kaesong visited the North Korean city for talks with North
Korean officials. Topics and the North Koreans attending the meeting were not
known.
The South Koreans were accompanied by heads and other senior members of the
private Kaesong Management Committee and their industrial interest body.
The outcome of the meeting will be released after they return from the one-day
trip, according to the Unification Ministry spokesman.
sshim@yna.co.kr
(END)
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