South Korea on Monday dismissed as "incomprehensible" a list of North Korean demands for reviving suspended operations at a jointly-run industrial park.
A South Korean military jeep front escorts cars leaving Kaesong at a border checkpoint in Paju on May 3, South Korea on Monday dismissed an "incomprehensible" list of North Korean demands for reviving suspended operations at a jointly-run industrial park. The Kaesong Industrial Complex, opened north of the border in as a rare symbol of cooperation, has been shut indefinitely with the withdrawal of all North and South Korean workers amid soaring military tensions.
On Sunday, the North's National Defense Commission led by leader Kim Jong-Un said re-starting the complex would require the South to cease all "hostile acts and military provocations. It cited preparations for a joint South Korea-US military drill scheduled for August, as well as activists and defectors who use balloons to send anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. The South's defence ministry said there no plans to cancel the upcoming military exercise with the United States.
Normally, 53, North Koreans work at factories owned by some South Korean firms in Kaesong, which has in the past remained largely immune to strains in inter-Korean relations. But as military tensions escalated in the wake of the North's nuclear test in February, Pyongyang barred South Korean access to the zone and pulled out all its 53, workers early last month.
Seoul withdrew all its nationals last week. Neither of the two Koreas has officially declared the complex closed, and Kim Hyung-Seok said Seoul continued to supply a "minimum" amount of electricity to the apparently empty complex.
