PAJU: South Korea yesterday withdrew its last remaining workers from a joint industrial zone in North Korea at risk of permanent closure due to soaring military tensions.
It is the first time Seoul has pulled out all its workers from the project since it opened in 2004, underscoring the severe deterioration in ties between the two Koreas.
The Kaesong Industrial Zone (KIZ) — located 10 kilometres north of the frontier — was once a symbol of cross-border cooperation, but has fallen victim to the stand-off on the Korean peninsula.
Seoul last week ordered all remaining South Koreans to leave after Pyongyang banned entry by southerners, pulled out its own 53,000 workers and rejected the South’s call for talks on the impasse.
Most South Koreans had left by early Tuesday, and the last seven workers returned yesterday after several days of talks with the North over issues such as unpaid wages for North Koreans, the Unification Ministry said.
Seoul sent two vehicles loaded with $13m in cash over the border to make the payments demanded by Pyongyang.
Pyongyang blamed the South for the deadlock over. “All facts go to prove that the (South Korean) puppet forces are working hard to turn the sacred KIZ into a theatre of confrontation,” the North’s official KCNA news agency said yesterday in a commentary.
AFP
