The North says its actions on the Kaesong complex were a response to Seoul’s earlier decision to suspend operations as punishment for the launch.
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Pyongyang said it would expel all South Koreans working at the Kaesong industrial complex Thursday, freeze all the assets of South Korean companies operating there, and place the zone under military control.
Supporters of the project said that kind of contact was important in promoting inter-Korean understanding, despite concerns that isolated Pyongyang might have used proceeds from Kaesong to help fund its nuclear and missile programs.
On Thursday morning, 290 commuter buses run by the industrial park, which normally bring the 52,000 North Korean employees to work, arrived empty, according to an official at the Ministry of Unification.
Mr Hwang called on the foreign ministry in Seoul to make efforts to make sure that the UN Security Council can slap strong and effective sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear and missile tests, and also urged the defence ministry to maintain military readiness in the event of further provocation from the North.
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. The legislation also authorizes $50 million over the next five years to transmit radio broadcasts into North Korea, purchase communications equipment and support humanitarian assistance.
Japan imposed unilateral sanctions Wednesday, including prohibiting North Korean ships from entering Japanese ports and a total entry ban on the entry of North Korean nationals into Japan. Some South Korean snacks have become popular among North Korean workers.
All of the people, who had stayed in Kaesong to complete the shutdown of factories, returned to the south at about 10 p.m. local time (1300 GMT).
North Korea, in its statement, also issued crude insults against South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye, saying she masterminded the shutdown and calling her a “confrontational wicked woman” who lives upon “the groin of her American boss”.
“I only brought back about one-thirtieth of what was there”, Kang Sung-Ho, the manager of a shoe company said as he crossed the border.
Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test last month, and launched a satellite into space on Sunday, drawing global condemnation.
But Kaesong Industrial Complex Business Association Chairman Jeong Ki-seop said the government decision to “unilaterally” shut down Kaesong was “not lawful”, and more needs to be done to compensate business losses, South Korean news network YTN reported.
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Terminating the Kaesong complex, the last remnant of South Korea’s Sunshine Policy of engagement with the North, ends virtually any hope, in the near future, of a peaceful settlement to the long-standing tensions on the Korean peninsula.
