“South Korean enemy forces will experience themselves the harsh and painful price they should pay for halting the Kaesong industrial complex”, the CPRK said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
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“It will completely freeze all assets including equipment, materials and products of South Korean enterprises and relevant bodies in the Kaesong Industrial Complex”, reported the state-run television station.
Some South Korean workers left the Kaesong industrial complex before the North’s expulsion order, and a handful of others were seen leaving afterward, but South Korean officials didn’t know what would happen to its nationals who had not departed by Pyongyang’s 5:30 p.m. (Seoul time) deadline.
Some 124 South Korean companies employ more than 54,000 North Korean workers at the site, the last remaining symbol of reconciliation between Pyongyang and Seoul, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported.
South Korean vehicles returning from North Korea’s joint Kaesong Industrial Complex pass the customs, immigration and quarantine office near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016.
The statement by the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea significantly raises the stakes in a standoff that began with North Korea’s nuclear test last month and rocket launch on Sunday.
South Korea’s suspension of activities at Kaesong on Wednesday came in retaliation for North Korea’s recent rocket launch and nuclear test.
The U.S. Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to adopting stronger sanctions that would target U.S. assets of individuals or companies that import North Korean goods, technology or training related to weapons of mass destruction, or are connected to human rights abuses.
Seoul’s Unification Ministry said in a statement issued Thursday the government is to activate a grace period for loan repayment and protect business losses with support from a state-managed emergency management stability fund.
South Korean businesses with factories at the park reacted with a mixture of disappointment and anger. Some analysts speculated that the North would hold onto some to get all the wages owed North Korean workers. “It’s as if we’re just being ordered to jump off a cliff”, said Jeong Gi-Seob, head of the Kaesong owners’ association.
“Now we can say that all strings between the Koreas have been cut and that there are no more buffers”, said Ko Yoo-Hwan, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in Seoul.
“If you look at our government’s way of handling North Korea, that apparently it is hoping for some kind of major collapse of the North Korea regime”.
The bill also authorises $50m (£34m) for radio broadcasts into North Korea and humanitarian aid programs.
“(Army General) Ri Yong-Gil stopped appearing at important functions and I am getting multiple confirmations from diversified North Korean sources that Ri has been executed”, a South Korean assemblyman told NBC News.
Auto-parts supplier Jaeyoung Solutec Co. and underwear maker Good People Co., two South Korean companies with some manufacturing operations in Kaesong, slid 24% and 17%, respectively.
The government official said it will complete bringing South Koreans at the complex home Thursday.
It is the latest in an escalating standoff over North Korea’s recent rocket launch that Seoul, Washington and their allies view as a banned test of missile technology.
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It was the only place to officially allow people from both Koreas to interact and have a glimpse into each other’s lives and sparking the smuggling of South Korean snacks and food.
