South Korea Cuts Hotline Communications With North Korea

Hong argued that North Korean measures, such as driving South Koreans out of the complex, freezing the South’s assets and severing communication channels with the South, are unfair and extreme.

South Korean owners who run factories in the suspended inter-Korean…

The US Department of Defense said on February 8 that it is planning to deploy the advanced missile system “as quickly as possible” to counter what was described as the growing threat of the weapons capabilities of North Korea.

Seoul on Friday announced a package of assistance measures to support South Korean companies forced out of a factory park run jointly with North Korea.

The report also notes that North Korea continues to work on a long-range missile, called the KN-08, that could give North Korea the ability to attack the US with a mobile launcher that USA satellites could have trouble tracking.

“In a way, it’s a miracle it lasted that long”, said Leonid Petrov, an expert on North Korea at the Australian National University.

Transmission towers supplying power to the Kaesong Industrial Complex from South Korea, are seen on a foggy and rainy day after South Korea cut off power, in Paju, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 12, 2016.

Jeong Joon-Hee, the ministry’s spokesman, said it was plausible that a sizeable amount of the money the South Korean companies paid for North Korean labor would have ended up in Pyongyang’s state coffers because of the way the workers receive their wages.

They also rubbed shoulders with their managers from South Korea.

The North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea added in its statement that Seoul “will experience the disastrous and painful consequences of its actions”. After North’s recent nuclear test, Washington has reportedly sought a ban on tourism and restrictions to keep North Korea’s flagship airline, Air Koryo, from flying into and out of airports overseas.

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. Calling the suspension a “dangerous declaration of war”, it deported South Korean workers at Kaesong and shut off two key communication hotlines.

“I was told not to bring anything but personal goods, so I’ve got nothing but my clothes to take back”, a manager at a South Korean apparel company at the complex, who declined to give his name, told The Associated Press by phone before he crossed to the South.

South Korea’s government and companies have invested more than 1 trillion won ($852 million) to pave roads and erect buildings in the park, which lies on the outskirts of Kaesong, North Korea’s third-largest city.

The two Koreas have technically been at war since hostilities began in 1950.