N. Korea reopens border for stranded S. Korean workers

(ATTN: UPDATES with more details, background; CHANGES headline)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, March 16 (Yonhap) -- North Korea told South Korea on Monday that it will
partially reopen the border for stranded South Korean workers to return home from
a joint industrial complex in the communist state, a Seoul spokesman said.
But North Korea still refused to allow South Korean workers to commute across the
border to the industrial park in the North's border town of Kaesong, casting
doubt over the future of the last remaining inter-Korean reconciliation project.
"North Korea sent us a message at 9:20 a.m. saying that South Koreans who have
been waiting for a cross-border trip since Friday will be allowed to return home
starting this afternoon," Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said.
Following the limited resumption of border passage, a total of 453 South Korean
workers were scheduled to return to Seoul between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., leaving
behind 272 South Koreans in the Kaesong complex, ministry officials said.
A total of 655 South Korean commuters preparing to visit the Kaesong industrial
park on Monday were denied permission to cross the border by the North, they
noted.
North Korea has also yet to approve border crossings by South Korean cargo trucks
carrying raw materials for Kaesong factories. Nearly half of the factories there
will have to stop production if the materials are not delivered by Monday,
according to their South Korean offices.
More than 90 South Korean firms operate in the Kaesong industrial complex,
employing about 36,000 North Koreans who produce clothes, watches, kitchenware,
electronic equipment and other labor-intensive goods.
A product of the first inter-Korean summit in 2000 which combines South Korean
capital and technology with North Korean labor, the complex is the last remaining
inter-Korean economic project since damaged relations led to the suspension of
South Korean tours to North Korea's scenic Mount Kumgang and historic sites in
Kaesong last year.
The message from a North Korean military official overseeing the western border
area was delivered by hand, ministry officials said. No official communication
channel is now available between the two Koreas after the North severed a final
military communications line last week to protest a joint military exercise by
South Korea and the United States. The channel will remain closed until the joint
drill ends on Friday, it said.
North Korea slammed the drill as a rehearsal for a "second Korean War" when it
first closed the border last Monday. But crossings resumed the next day.
The North gave no explanation for its resealing of the border on Friday.
North Korea's Rodong Sinmun, official newspaper of the ruling Worker's Party,
made no mention of the border closure, but repeated denunciations of President
Lee Myung-bak's policy of "confrontation" and his remarks over the North's
planned rocket launch.
"What they uttered is nothing but despicable remarks made by those sycophantic
traitors," the paper said. "The grave tension on the Korean Peninsula is not
attributable to someone's 'preparations for a missile launch' or 'refusal to have
dialogue' but it is a product of the Lee group of traitors' anachronistic moves
to escalate the confrontation with the DPRK."
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official
name.
Lee and his Cabinet officials have said the North's planned rocket launch will
draw U.N. sanctions regardless of whether it is carrying a satellite or a
missile.
Pyongyang has said it will put a communications satellite into orbit and notified
international aviation and maritime agencies that the launch will take place
sometime between April 4-8. There has been conflicting speculation about the
nature of what Pyongyang is assembling, especially given its past missile
activity.
Pyongyang has warned any foreign attempt to shoot down its rocket would lead to a
war on the Korean Peninsula.
Seoul officials could not say whether the North's latest action is in retaliation
against South Korea's position on the North's planned rocket launch.
Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea studies professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, said
Pyongyang is "expressing its discontent over Lee's tough policy."
Inter-Korean relations have disintegrated to the lowest point in a decade since
Lee took office a year ago, adopting a tougher stance on North Korea's nuclear
program and ending his liberal predecessors' policy of unconditional aid.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)