North Korea vows to deport all South Koreans from factory park

Chang Beom Kang, who has been running an apparel company in Kaesong since 2009, said from South Korea that his company has about 920 North Korean workers – who didn’t show up on Thursday – and seven South Korean managers at Kaesong.

The North also declared the industrial park a military control zone, according to the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, which handles inter-Korean affairs, in a statement reported by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Thursday afternoon.

Over the years, support in the South for unqualified engagement faded as the North continued its defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons and continued to initiate provocations.

The owners of the 124 South Korean companies operating factories in Kaesong had sent hundreds of staff and empty trucks into the North on Thursday morning in the hope of bringing out as much as they could. In fact, within a year, North Korea managed to test a hydrogen bomb.

The committee said that President Park Geun Hye was “a fool” for ending operations at the complex, which was the last vestige of economic cooperation between the two countries, calling the suspension ” a risky declaration of war”.

Seoul’s decision to shut down the factory park came in the wake of Pyongyang’s long-range rocket launch on Sunday.

North Korea has yet to respond officially to the shutdown, and a number of those crossing the border were wary of entering a potentially volatile situation.

North Korea, in a fit of anger over U.S.-South Korean military drills, pulled its workers from Kaesong for about five months in 2013.

DPRK is short for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea.

The proposed sanctions still require Cabinet and Parliament approval.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service declined to comment and it was not possible to independently verify the report.

According to multiple experts, North Korea has at least a dozen and perhaps as many as 100 nuclear weapons, though at present it lacks sophisticated delivery mechanisms. The North also seized South Korea’s assets in Kumgang resort area in 2010.

Several people who crossed back into the South on Thursday said they had noticed an increased military presence in Kaesong, including armed soldiers carrying backpacks and sleeping bags.

It repeated the North’s claims that its long-range rocket launch on Saturday was to launch a satellite, and the previous alleged hydrogen test exercised the “legitimate right” to self-defence. Concerning South Korean businesses, the ruling party called on the government to make utmost efforts to minimize the damages to the firms.

Other charges Ri faced before his execution were abusing his power and forming a clique, the official said. So Myung-kil tell us the latest reactions from parliament.

The technology involved in the launch was “dual-use” and could be used to launch a satellite or deliver a warhead.

An emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Sunday agreed on the need for new sanctions against Pyongyang.