AP, Paju :
North Korea on Thursday ordered a military takeover of a factory park that was the last major symbol of cooperation with South Korea, saying Seoul’s suspension of operations at the jointly run facility was a “dangerous declaration of war.”
Pyongyang said it was immediately deporting the hundreds of South Koreans who work at the complex just across the world’s most heavily armed border in the city of Kaesong, pulling out the tens of thousands of North Korean employees and freezing all South Korean assets. The North also said it was shutting down two crucial cross-border communication hotlines.
An immediate worry in Seoul was whether all South Korean workers would be allowed to leave; some analysts speculated that Pyongyang would hold onto some to get all the wages owed North Korean workers.
Some South Korean workers left Kaesong before the North’s announcement, and a handful of others were seen leaving afterward, but South Korean officials didn’t know what would happen to its nationals who had not departed by Pyongyang’s 5:30 p.m. (Seoul time) expulsion deadline; they also didn’t how many remained at the factories. South Korea said it would ban reporters from the border crossing on Friday.
Well after the deadline passed, workers at Kaesong told The Associated Press by phone that they had been instructed to wait for further instructions from South Korean officials.
A manager at a South Korean apparel company at the complex, who declined to give his name, said he and one other South Korean at his company were waiting in an office for word about when they could leave. He said he was not sure whether he would return to the South on Thursday. He said he did not see any North Korean officials and did not know whether other South Koreans were there.
“I was told not to bring anything but personal goods, so I’ve got nothing but my clothes to take back,” the man said.
The South’s Unification Ministry, which is responsible for ties with the North, said about 130 South Koreans had planned to enter Kaesong on Thursday to begin shutdown work, and that nearly 70 South Koreans who had been staying there would be leaving.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing an unidentified military official, reported that South Korea bolstered its military readiness and strength along the western portion of the border in the event of a North Korean provocation. The report didn’t elaborate on what that meant, and Seoul’s Defense Ministry said it couldn’t confirm the report.
The North’s moves, announced by the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, significantly raised the stakes in a standoff that began with North Korea’s nuclear test last month, followed by a long-range rocket launch on Sunday that outsiders see as a banned test of ballistic missile technology. South Korea’s responded Thursday by beginning work to suspend operations at the factory park, one of its harshest possible punishment options.
