Seoul unhappy with border-crossing ban

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-16 09:29

The Republic of Korea (ROK) expressed regret yesterday over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s move to bar border crossings by workers from a joint industrial park in the DPRK.

Pyongyang first closed the border on March 9 after cutting off the only remaining hot line with ROK to protest its ongoing military drills with the United States. The DPRK says the exercises are a rehearsal for an invasion. The two use the hot line to coordinate the passage of people and goods through their heavily fortified border.

DPRK reopened the border last Tuesday but closed it again on Friday, stranding hundreds of people working in the Kaesong complex.

DPRK's move is "very regrettable," Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said at a meeting with ROK business owners who run factories in the sprawling complex.

ROK's ruling Grand National Party, meanwhile, urged the DPRK to end the ban.

The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Tension on the peninsula has intensified in recent weeks after DPRK announced plans to launch a satellite, which many regional powers suspect is cover for a test of a long-range missile technology.

The border restrictions have caused jitters among ROK business owners at the complex. "I have not decided whether I should build more factories ... as the situation keeps deteriorating," said Yoo Byeong-gi, head of television parts maker BK Electronics.

The complex combines Seoul's technology and management expertise with Pyongyang's cheap labor. More than 100 ROK factories in Kaesong employ about 38,000 DPRK workers.

Nearly 730 South Koreans were stuck in the Kaesong complex yesterday but they were all believed to be safe, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.