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Thursday March 27, 9:22 PMNKorea expels SKoreans from joint industrial park
The move was in protest at comments by a South Korean minister linking expansion of the Kaesong estate to the North's denuclearisation, Seoul's unification ministry said. The presidential office said the expulsions could damage ties, which have been gradually improving in recent years after decades of deep hostility. The ministry said Seoul early Thursday withdrew the officials from a joint office in the complex after the North demanded they leave. Five non-government South Korean staff remain. It was the first such mass expulsion since the Seoul-funded Kaesong complex was set up in 2005 following a landmark 2000 summit. Kaesong is the most important joint project and most visible symbol of reconciliation between the two Koreas, who remain technically on a wartime footing. Almost 24,000 North Korean workers earning about 70 dollars a month produce light industrial goods there for 69 South Korean firms. South Korea's new conservative President Lee Myung-Bak has promised to take a more pragmatic and less ideological line with the North, after a decade-long "sunshine" engagement policy under his liberal predecessors. Lee called an emergency meeting of security-related officials in response. "North Korea's abrupt act is regrettable and may pose an obstacle to sustained development of inter-Korean relations," his spokesman Lee Dong-Gwan said afterwards. "The government will deal with the Kaesong incident in accordance with its pragmatic policy. We'll thoroughly stick to the principle, though a flexible approach will be adopted." The expulsions were the North's first action against the new government, Sogang University professor Kim Young-Soo told AFP. "We are likely to see inter-Korean ties become tense and military tensions will increase along the border." Daily operations were unaffected at the estate, a capitalist enclave near the heavily fortified border that is a valuable source of hard currency for the impoverished North. But the unification ministry, which handles relations with the North, said the expulsions may spark anxiety among potential investors. Last week, Unification Minister Kim Ha-Joong said Kaesong would not be expanded unless progress was made in scrapping the North's nuclear programme. On Wednesday Kim added that improvements in bilateral relations "will be decided according to progress in the North Korean nuclear issue." North Korea last year signed a six-nation deal to abandon its nuclear weapons, but the process has been deadlocked by a dispute over its promised declaration of all nuclear programmes. The North says it submitted its nuclear declaration last November. But the United States says Pyongyang has not fully accounted for a suspected uranium enrichment programme and allegations of nuclear proliferation to Syria. The new administration wants to tie non-humanitarian aid more closely to nuclear disarmament. Lee has also said he will press the North to improve its widely criticised human rights record. Media reports say South Korea will support a critical resolution at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this week. Vice Unification Minister Hong Yang-Ho, quoted by Yonhap news agency, said the government "will not come up with any 'carrot' measures to appease the North in relation to the incident, and has no intention to offer anything to the North." The opposition liberal United Democratic Party criticised both sides. "The symbol of reconciliation efforts between the two Koreas has been put at risk due mainly to the Lee administration's immature North Korea policy," said its spokesman Yoo Jong-Pil, who also expressed regret at the North's "emotional action." |
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