S. Koreans barred from jointly-run factory in NK
Source: Agencies |
April 4, 2013, Thursday
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NORTH Korea yesterday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in North Korea in the latest sign that Pyongyang's warlike stance toward South Korea and the United States is moving from words to action.
The Kaesong move came a day after North Korea announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and a uranium enrichment plant.
Both could produce fuel for nuclear weapons.
North Korea's rising rhetoric has been met by a display of US military strength, including flights of nuclear-capable bombers and stealth jets at the annual South Korean-US military drills that the allies call routine but that North Korea claims are invasion preparations.
The Kaesong industrial park started producing goods in 2004 and has been an unusual point of cooperation in an otherwise hostile relationship between the countries, whose three-year war ended with an 1953 armistice.
Its continued operation even through past episodes of high tension has reassured foreign companies that another Korean War is unlikely and their investments in prosperous dynamic South Korea are safe.
It is unclear how long North Korea will prevent South Koreans from entering the industrial park, which is located in the North Korean border city of Kaesong and provides jobs for more than 50,000 North Koreans. The last major disruption at the park amid tensions over US-South Korean military drills in 2009 lasted just three days.
Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said Pyongyang was allowing South Koreans to return home from Kaesong. Some 33 workers of about 860 South Koreans at Kaesong returned yesterday. But Kim said about 480 South Koreans who had planned to travel to the park yesterday were being refused entry.
Trucks streamed back into South Korea through its Paju border checkpoint in the morning, just minutes after heading through it, after being refused entry into the North.
Pyongyang threatened last week to shut down the park, which is run with North Korean labor and South Korean know-how. It expressed anger over South Korean media reports that said North Korea hadn't yet shut the park because it is a source of crucial hard currency for the impoverished country.
The Kaesong move came a day after North Korea announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and a uranium enrichment plant.
Both could produce fuel for nuclear weapons.
North Korea's rising rhetoric has been met by a display of US military strength, including flights of nuclear-capable bombers and stealth jets at the annual South Korean-US military drills that the allies call routine but that North Korea claims are invasion preparations.
The Kaesong industrial park started producing goods in 2004 and has been an unusual point of cooperation in an otherwise hostile relationship between the countries, whose three-year war ended with an 1953 armistice.
Its continued operation even through past episodes of high tension has reassured foreign companies that another Korean War is unlikely and their investments in prosperous dynamic South Korea are safe.
It is unclear how long North Korea will prevent South Koreans from entering the industrial park, which is located in the North Korean border city of Kaesong and provides jobs for more than 50,000 North Koreans. The last major disruption at the park amid tensions over US-South Korean military drills in 2009 lasted just three days.
Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said Pyongyang was allowing South Koreans to return home from Kaesong. Some 33 workers of about 860 South Koreans at Kaesong returned yesterday. But Kim said about 480 South Koreans who had planned to travel to the park yesterday were being refused entry.
Trucks streamed back into South Korea through its Paju border checkpoint in the morning, just minutes after heading through it, after being refused entry into the North.
Pyongyang threatened last week to shut down the park, which is run with North Korean labor and South Korean know-how. It expressed anger over South Korean media reports that said North Korea hadn't yet shut the park because it is a source of crucial hard currency for the impoverished country.
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