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 The North declared the industrial park, run by the rivals as a
symbol of cooperation for more than a decade, a military control
zone, the agency that handles its ties with Seoul said, according to
the official KCNA news agency.
Dozens of South Korean trucks were already returning across the
border earlier in the day, laden with goods and equipment, after the
South said it was pulling out.
"Unpardonable is the puppet group's act of totally suspending the
operation in (Kaesong), finding fault with the DPRK's H-bomb test
and launch of a satellite," the North's Committee for the Peaceful
Reunification of Korea said, referring to South Korea.
Isolated North Korea regularly dismisses the South as a puppet of
the United States and just as regularly accuses both of acts of war
against it.
DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea. North Korea tested what it said was a hydrogen
bomb on Jan. 6 and on Sunday launched a rocket, putting a satellite
into orbit.
The United States, Japan and South Korea said Sunday's launch was a
ballistic missile test, and like last month's nuclear test, a
violation of U.N. resolutions. The U.S. Senate voted unanimously in
favor of tougher sanctions.
 North Korea ordered South Koreans out of the zone by late afternoon,
forbidding them to take anything other than personal belongings,
KCNA said. South Korea said after the North's announcement that its
top priority was the safe return of all of its people.
Halting activity at the park, where 124 South Korean companies
employed about 55,000 North Koreans, cuts the last significant
vestige of North-South cooperation - a rare opportunity for Koreans
divided by the 1950-53 war to interact on a daily basis.
North Korean workers were given a taste of life in the South at the
complex, about 54 km (34 miles) northwest of Seoul, including snack
foods like Choco Pies and toiletries that were resold as luxury
items in the North.
They also rubbed shoulders with their managers from South Korea.
Supporters of the project said that kind of contact was important in
promoting inter-Korean understanding, despite concerns that
Pyongyang might have used proceeds from Kaesong to help fund its
nuclear and missile programs.
RISKS AND REWARDS
Except for Kaesong, both countries forbid their citizens from
communicating with each other across the world’s most fortified
frontier.
"We piled up instant noodles, bread and drinks in our warehouse so
North Korean workers could come here and eat freely," said Lee
Jong-ku, who runs a firm that installs electrical equipment for
apparel factories in Kaesong. "We don't mind them eating our food,
because we only care about them working hard."
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For the North, the revenue opportunity from Kaesong - $110 million
in wages and fees in 2015 - was deemed worth the risk of exposing
its workers to influences from the prosperous South. In recent
years, North Koreans have had increasing access to contraband media,
exposing them to life in the South and China.
Still, Pyongyang took precautions to ensure the workers it
hand-picked for the complex had minimal contact with their South
Korean managers that could be potentially subversive.
"These North Korean workers are strongly armed ideologically," said
Koo Ja-ick, who was waiting on the south side of the border on his
way to Kaesong, where he has worked at an apparel company for the
past four years.
"They never act individually. They always work and move in a group
of two, even manager-level people do so. They never go to the
bathroom by themselves - always in groups," he said.
The average wage for North Korean workers at Kaesong was roughly
$160 a month, paid to a state management company. The workers
received about 20 percent of that in coupons and North Korean
currency, said Cho Bong-hyun, who heads research on North Korea's
economy at IBK Bank in Seoul.
A South Korean government official involved in North Korea policy
said it was difficult to see how operations could be resumed anytime
soon at Kaesong, which opened in 2005.
Shares of several leading companies in the Kaesong zone plunged in
Thursday trading, falling by nearly 10 percent or more. Defense
shares, on the other hand, performed strongly.
Despite volatile North-South relations over the years, Kaesong had
been shut only once before, for five months in 2013, amid heightened
tensions following its third nuclear test. Its future had often
seemed uncertain over the past decade.
(Additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul; Writing by Tony Munroe.
Editing by Bill Tarrant and Nick Macfie)
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