S. Korea prepares for more pullouts from N. Korea

SEOUL, Nov. 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korea is scrambling to pull out more of its citizens from joint industrial and tourism zones in North Korea ahead of a Pyongyang-imposed Dec. 1 deadline, officials said Tuesday.

"The Unification Ministry will operate an emergency situation room led by the
director general of the Unification Policy Bureau from Tuesday till early
December," Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman for the ministry, told reporters.
The team will gather information related to the pullout plan on a real-time basis
and devise measures to ensure the safety of South Koreans in the North, he said.
North Korea said on Monday it will "selectively" expel remaining South Koreans
from an industrial complex in Kaesong and a resort at Mount Geumgang and downsize
South Korean personnel at plants operating in Kaesong. The steps are aimed at
pressuring Seoul to alter its "confrontational" policy toward Pyongyang.
Analysts say the North's measures, if enforced, may jeopardize civilian exchanges
and economic cooperation with the South at a time when inter-Korean
reconciliatory dialogue is absent.
The ministry spokesman also noted that South Korean firms operating in Kaesong
were meeting with their North Korean counterparts over how many South Koreans
will be required to leave the industrial park.
Inter-Korean relations have worsened since South Korea's conservative President
Lee Myung-bak took office in February. Lee has set progress towards North Korea's
nuclear disarmament as a precondition to new joint business operations.
In March, North Korea expelled all South Korean government officials from the two
joint areas after Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong commented that it would be
difficult to expand the Kaesong complex without progress towards Pyongyang's
denuclearization.
North Korean officials visited the office of the South's private Kaesong
Industrial District Management Committee twice on Monday to ask for a list of
South Koreans and vehicles going to stay or pull out from the enclave, the
spokesman added.
Currently, 88 small South Korean manufacturers operate in Kaesong, a symbol of
inter-Korean rapprochement. More than 36,000 North Korean and 1,500 South Koreans
are employed by the firms.
Pyongyang has limited the number of South Korean workers who can stay at the
Mount Geumgang resort to 200 since a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a
North Korean soldier after she entered an off-limit zone in early July.
sshim@yna.co.kr