North Korea to cut hotlines with South amid Kaesong shutdown

A group of people braved the rain for hours on the southern side of a cross-border bridge on Thursday anxiously waiting for their family members and co-workers to return to South Korea.

The statement came the same day as a South Korean official confirmed to CNN that Pyongyang had executed a senior North Korean military leader last week. “I feel very bitter and resentful of the government’s abrupt decision”.

Yonhap news agency, citing an unidentified military official, reported that South Korea bolstered its military readiness and strength along the western portion of the border in the event of a North Korean provocation. The report didn’t elaborate on what that meant.

South Korea’s financial watchdog said Thursday it will present a set of measures for local companies operating in the inter-Korean industrial complex in a North Korean border city to help minimize the aftereffects of its shutdown.

Last weekend, the North launched a long-range rocket, which it said was created to put a satellite into orbit, but critics say it was to test ballistic missile technology.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry has shown what it says is debris from North Korea’s recent missile launch. Such over-the-top rhetoric is typical of the North’s propaganda, but the country appeared to be backing up its language with its strong response.

Another trust-building project that brought South Korean tourists to the Mount Kumgang resort in the North was shut down in 2008, while attempts by the South to hold regular reunions of families separated during the Korean War of 1950- 53 have failed.

North Korea previously cut communication hotlines with the South in 2013, but reopened them after relations improved.

The 124 small and medium South Korean manufacturing companies that operate in Kaesong already had begun pulling out staff, equipment and goods.

Vehicles that left the Kaesong joint industrial complex in North Korea arrive in Paju, South Korea, Thursday.

“An escalation of tensions is inevitable, and I see further trouble ahead with Kaesong and the issues of seized assets, especially if North Korea militarises the zone”, Ko said.

Kaesong is one of the last points of co-operation between the two Koreas and a key source of revenue for Pyongyang.

The question among some is, why now?

“South Korean enemy forces will experience themselves the harsh and painful price they should pay for halting the Kaesong industrial complex”, it said.

The DPRK decided Thursday to shut down the inter-Korean industrial zone and deport all of South Koreans staying there.

The Senate is considering hitting North Korea with more stringent sanctions in the wake of Pyongyang’s satellite launch and technical advances that US intelligence agencies say the reclusive Asian nation is…

Jang’s remarks reflected a general sense of outrage among Kaesong’s South Korean business community over the shutdown order.

All South Koreans were ordered to leave Kaesong by 5pm Pyongyang time and told they could take nothing but their personal possessions. “How do we take and ship the products out without enough time?” he asked.

For the North, the revenue opportunity from Kaesong – $110 million in wages and fees in 2015 – was deemed worth the risk of exposing its workers to influences from the prosperous South. In recent years, North Koreans have had increasing access to contraband media, exposing them to life in the South and China.