North Korea squeezes South with border clampdown
PAJU, South Korea (Reuters) - North Korea slashed the number of South Korean workers at a joint industrial enclave in the North on Monday in a border clampdown seen as a pressure tactic to change Seoul's tough policy towards its neighbour.
The move comes just a week before destitute North Korea is expected to discuss a disarmament pact with five regional powers which promises Pyongyang economic and energy aid for taking apart its nuclear programme and allowing inspections.
South Korean officials said last week they had reached a deal where more than 1,600 of the nearly 4,200 South Koreans permitted to work at the joint factory park in Kaesong would remain. But late on Sunday, North Korea then further cut that number and only allowed in 880, the South's Unification Ministry said.
"The border restriction measures impede production and decrease market confidence," ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon told a news briefing.
"The measures are in violation of prior inter-Korean agreements. They cannot be justified and should be abolished."
Last week, South Korea cut runs of a highly symbolic freight train across the heavily armed border and ended tours to the city of Kaesong ahead of the North's clampdown on the one remaining land crossing between the states, which have yet to officially end their 1950-53 war.
North Korea allowed the limited number of South Koreans to cross the border without incident. They are keeping nearly 90 factories running at the park that employs about 33,000 North Koreans.
The Kaesong factory complex, about 70 km (45 miles) northwest of Seoul, produces items such as watches, shoes and kitchen goods. It has provided North Korea's leaders with hundreds of millions of dollars.
"The factories are running as usual," said Kim Min-kyung, a South Korean official at the industrial park in North Korea.
STRATEGIC TOOL
Analysts said the North may not go as far as closing the factory park because it could further damage North Korea's already tainted image as a reliable business partner just as it is appealing for more overseas investment.
Ties between the two Koreas have chilled since President Lee Myung-bak took office in February and ended unconditional aid to the communist state, saying Seoul would tie its largesse to moves the North makes to end its nuclear arms programme.
"With no rhetoric can the Lee group evade the blame for having pushed the inter-Korean relations to the danger of total severance," the North's communist party newspaper said in a commentary.
Jang Cheol-hyeon, a former high-ranking North Korean official who defected and now works for a think tank affiliated with the South's spy agency, said Pyongyang's leaders have seen Kaesong as a cash cow that could also be exploited for political purposes.
"The Kaesong Industrial Complex was designed as a strategic tool to threaten the South when necessary, and now it is being taken into action," Jang said.
Analysts said North Korea's leaders may be feeling the need to exert authority due to reports leader Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke in August, which raised questions about stability in Asia's only communist dynasty.
On Monday, the North's state TV showed undated pictures of Kim touring an air force base, which may reassure the masses at home but leaves unanswered in the outside world questions about his health, as there is no clear indication as to when the pictures were taken.
The other border crossing between the two Koreas effectively closed in July after a South Korean tourist at a mountain resort in the North was shot dead by a North Korean soldier.
(Additional reporting by Kim Junghyun; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Jerry Norton)