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North Korea vows to go ahead with border closure
24 Nov 2008 03:55:38 GMT
 Source: Reuters
SEOUL, Nov 24 (Reuters) - North Korea on Monday said that it would go ahead with its threat to effectively close its land border with the South, including expelling South Korean managers from an industrial site just inside its border, from Dec. 1.

The reclusive state first warned nearly two weeks ago it would end traffic across the heavily armed border with its wealthy neighbour but this is the first time it has given details of the action it would take.

North Korea's KCNA news agency said the measures were the first steps "to be taken in connection with the evermore undisguised anti-DPRK (North Korea) confrontational racket of the south Korean puppet authorities."

It will also suspend all tours to its border city of Kaesong, near the industrial park run by a South Korean firm, and halt rail traffic across the border.

The Kaesong industrial park is the only significant commercial relationship between the Koreas, divided for more than half a century.

KCNA said North Korea would selectively expel South Koreans from the industrial park. The site is home to nearly 90 South Korean companies which operate there to make use of cheap North Korean labour.

The North has notified companies operating in Kaesong that it would allow some personnel to remain so that the plants can keep running, South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon later told reporters.

The move follows the end of a decade of unconditional aid from the South since conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office early this year with promises to invest heavily there only if Pyongyang moved to disable its nuclear weapons programme.

Lee made clear at the weekend he would not back down in the face of mounting tension with the North which accuses him of trying to reignite war on the Korean peninsula.

Last month, it threatened to reduce the South to rubble unless it stopped civic groups sending the anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

Regional powers plan to resume talks in Beijing next month with the North on a deal to dismantle its atomic weapons programme in exchange for aid and a chance to end its international isolation. (Reporting by Jack Kim and Jonathan Thatcher; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)


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Last updated:Mon Nov 24 03:57:36 2008