North Korea to halt border crossings with South

[November 12, 2008]  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea ratcheted up its threats to sever ties with South Korea by announcing Wednesday that it will halt cross-border traffic next month over what it calls Seoul's confrontational stance against Pyongyang.

The North's military is taking action to "restrict and cut off all the overland passages" across the frontier beginning Dec. 1, the country's official Korean Central News Agency said.

Relations between the two Koreas have deteriorated since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's conservative government took over in February, pledging to get tough with Pyongyang. North Korea has stepped up the rhetoric against the South in recent weeks, warning that it will attack South Korea and reduce it to "debris" if Seoul continues what it says are confrontational activities against the communist country.

Inter-Korean relations "are at the crucial crossroads of existence and total severance," KCNA said Wednesday.

The KCNA report did not say how long the border ban would remain in place. Prohibiting passage through the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas primarily would affect South Korean firms operating factories in an inter-Korean business complex in Kaesong, and would halt popular tours to the ancient city just across the border in the North.

Another joint Korean project in the North -- tours to one of Korea's most famous sites, Diamond Mountain -- has been stalled since the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist in July.

Diamond Mountain and Kaesong had served as prominent symbols of inter-Korean reconciliation on the divided peninsula.

South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said the North's threat to close the crossings would have a negative influence on reconciliation efforts.

"North Korea's move is aimed at pressuring South Korea to shift its policy toward the North," said Qiao Yuzhi, a North Korea expert at Peking University who is visiting Seoul. He said the North is likely to carry out its threat temporarily, calling it a short-term tactic.

South Korean tour operator Hyundai Asan Corp. said it has not received any notification from the North about halting its year-old program offering tours of Kaesong. More than 100,000 tourists, mostly South Koreans, have toured Kaesong -- a city that served as the capital of the ancient Koryo Dynasty that ruled Korea from 918 to 1392 and changed hands repeatedly during the 1950-53 Korean war.

Kaesong is home to some 88 South Korean factories employing about 35,000 North Korean workers. Currently, about 1,600 South Koreans also live and work in Kaesong, and an average of 200 South Koreans visit Kaesong daily, according to Hyundai Asan and the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs.

"There is no sign of tensions here and our factory is working normally," Kang Mi-wha, a South Korean manager at footwear maker Samduk Stafild, told The Associated Press by telephone from Kaesong.

The joint industrial complex has been a key source of hard currency for the impoverished North.

The move comes at a time of heightened tension between the two Koreas. Last month, the North warned that it would expel South Koreans from Kaesong if propaganda leaflets critical of Pyongyang keep floating across the border. The two Koreas agreed in 2004 to stop decades of propaganda warfare, but South Korea says it cannot stop activists from sending leaflets into North Korea by balloon.

"Such (a) stand and attitude are leading to the grave, wanton violation of all the north-south agreements," the KCNA report said.

A week ago, North Korean Lt. Gen. Kim Yong Chol inspected the Kaesong complex, and asked South Korean workers how long it would take for them to pull out, the South Korean government said.

Kim, the chief North Korean delegate to previous military talks with the South, informed his South Korean counterpart Wednesday of the decision to restrict border travel, KCNA said.

Seoul denies taking a hard-line stance toward the North. Unification Ministry spokesman Kim said South Korea respects the spirit of deals reached at two Korean summits held in 2000 and 2007. "We are willing to consult in detail," he told reporters.

The two Koreas fought a brutal three-year war that ended in 1953 in a truce, not a peace treaty. The two Koreas, technically still at war, remain divided by one of the world's most heavily fortified borders.

[Associated Press; By KWANG-TAE KIM]

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