Hundreds of S. Koreans cancel border trip as N. Korea cuts off communications

(ATTN: ADDS paras 7-8 with S. Korean visitors uncertain to return)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, March 9 (Yonhap) -- Hundreds of South Koreans planning to visit North
Korea on Monday canceled their trips after Pyongyang cut off the last
inter-Korean communications channel to protest South Korea's war drill with the
United States, officials said.
North Korea's military warned earlier in the day that it was immediately cutting
off a military hotline with South Korea, the only inter-Korean communications
channel that remained open after a number of others were closed by Pyongyang in
protest against Seoul's hardline policy.
South Koreans are allowed to cross the border only after notification of their
trip is first sent to North Korea through the military hotline.
The North said the communications channel will remain closed until the 12-day
joint exercise by South Korean and U.S. forces ends on March 20.
"Our government will put priority on the safety of our citizens in preparing
measures to deal with (the closure)," Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim
Ho-nyoun said.
About 700 people scheduled to visit a joint-industrial complex developed by South
Korea in the North Korean border town of Kaesong on Monday canceled their trips,
he said.
It is not known whether North Korea will allow the 572 South Koreans currently
visiting the Kaesong complex to return to the South. Starting at 3 p.m., 242 of
them are scheduled to return, officials said.
"The military hotline does not work now, but we are trying to reach North Korea
about whether the border trip is entirely impossible," a ministry official said,
requesting anonymity. He said the South Korean visitors may not be able to return
"in an extreme case."
The complex in Kaesong, several kilometers north of the inter-Korean border and
near the west coast, is a major economic project built after the first
South-North summit in 2000. It joins South Korean capital and technology with
North Korea's cheap but skilled labor.
More than 90 South Korean firms operate in Kaesong, producing kitchenware,
watches, clothes and other labor-intensive goods and employing some 38,200 North
Korean workers. Their combined output reached US$251.4 million won last year, up
36 percent from US$184.8 million won in 2007.
In a statement by its military earlier Monday, North Korea also warned it will
retaliate if anyone tries to shoot down a satellite it plans to launch, saying
interfering with the country's peaceful space activity would mean war.
Pyongyang is believed to be assembling a rocket at a missile base on its eastern
coast, presumed by neighboring states to be preparations for a long-range missile
test.
Friday's statement appeared to be an indication that North Korea may try to
launch the supposed satellite while the joint drill is under way.
North Korea also warned last week that it cannot ensure the safety of South
Korean passenger planes in its airspace. South Korean military officials suspect
the move is aimed at clearing up its airspace before its planned launch.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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