N. Korea suspends Kaesong tours, historic train link

(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with gov't response, more quotes by experts; TRIMS
throughout)
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 close the border to South Koreans
traveling for economic cooperation projects starting early next week in protest
of Seoul's tough policy toward Pyongyang.
The North will also "selectively" eject South Koreans and vehicles from the joint
Mount Geumgang resort and the industrial complex in the North Korean border town
of Kaesong, and halve the number of South Koreans in the complex, according to
seven different messages the North delivered to the South.
All the retaliatory measures will be go into effect on Dec. 1, the messages said.
However, the measures excluded shutting down the Kaesong complex, a symbol of
inter-Korean rapprochement and, for the impoverished communist country, a key
source of foreign currency, according to one of the messages unveiled by Seoul
officials.
"The South Korean puppets are still hell-bent on the treacherous and
anti-reunification confrontational racket," said another message from the North's
military, carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.
Monday's announcement is the "first step to cope with the prevailing grave
situation," the message said.
Pyongyang had warned earlier this month that it would restrict overland passage
across the inter-Korean border starting Dec. 1, 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 issuing the warning.
South Korea expressed "serious regret" over Monday's announcement while calling
on North Korea to withdraw it and return to dialogue with Seoul.
"The North's behavior of restricting and halting economic cooperation, which is
meaningful to improving inter-Korean relations, constitutes a grave incident that
would practically reverse the relations," Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman of the
Unification Ministry handling cross-border affairs, said in a statement.
The government convened an emergency meeting of the chief of the state
intelligence agency and security-related ministers, including the ministers of
unification and defense, to discuss countermeasures.
Kim said the government will take necessary measures to ensure the safety of
South Koreas residing in the North, but refused to elaborate.
The seven messages were sent to South Korean authorities, firms operating in
Kaesong, two private bodies overseeing management of the firms, Hyundai Asan,
which operates the tours to Kaesong and Mount Geumgang, and two other South
Korean companies engaged in joint ventures with the North, according to the
ministry.
In the messages, the North said it will selectively allow cross-border traffic by
vehicles, drivers and other staffers necessary to carry materials into the North,
but will shut the border to South Koreans coming to discuss economic cooperation
and trade with North Korean officials.
The North will halve the number of South Korean workers in the Kaesong complex
but "ensure" industrial activities by the plants since it does not want them to
be a scapegoat for Seoul's "reckless confrontational policy" in consideration of
the financial difficulties of the mostly small-sized firms, one of the messages
said.
The inter-Korean joint office in Kaesong will be closed, and the remaining six
South Korean staffers there will be forced out, the North said. The two Koreas
opened the joint office in October 2005 to smooth out civilian economic
cooperation projects, but it has not operated normally since the North ejected 11
South Korean government officials there in March.
Analysts say the North's plans to restrict cross-border traffic, if carried out,
would also seriously cripple civilian exchanges between the two Koreas, which
have so far been unaffected by the two countries' tense political ties.
"North Korea is going to start with the suspension of Kaesong tour, a measure
that might incur damage to itself, above all other measures," said Koh You-hwan,
a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University. "This signals the North's
willingness to cut all civilian exchanges, too," he said.
Kim Yeon-churl, chief of the private Hankyoreh Peace Research Institute, said the
series of measures announced by the North is "tantamount to a full suspension of
inter-Korean exchanges at both governmental and civilian levels."
"They reflect North Korea's strong intention to force South Korea to change its
policy by taking a strong action when chances are high that relations between the
North and the United States will improve," he said.
Pyongyang will watch and see South Korea's response in the coming days, preparing
to maximize its pressure on Seoul to change its policy, the analysts said.
Some experts forecast the border restrictions, if taken, will also jeopardize the
Kaesong complex by slowing production and decreasing investment in the complex.
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
1,500 South Korean workers.
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 and killed a South Korean housewife who was touring the
resort in July. The joint tour program to Kaesong continued to run normally,
however, despite the tension. The total number of tourists to Kaesong broke the
100,000 mark in October, almost 10 months after the program began.
The rail link across the western part of the demilitarized zone began its regular
service last December for the first time in almost 50 years, but recently, it has
been running almost empty.
North Korea is especially upset by 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 North.
"The prospect of inter-Korean relations will entirely depend on the attitude of
the South Korean authorities," the message from the North's military warned,
stressing that the North Korean military never makes "empty talk."
The North's announcement came after the chiefs of the South's plants operating in
Kaesong visited the North Korean city for talks with North Korean officials
earlier on Monday. The topics discussed and the identities of 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.
sshim@yna.co.kr
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