They were paid about $74 a month by South Korean firms. Seoul has demanded that Pyongyang grant safe passage to all its citizens, but there are concerns that some might find themselves detained if the North Korean authorities try to leverage their release.
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The average wage for North Korean workers at Kaesong was roughly $US160 ($226.25) a month, paid to a state management company.
In September 2014, Pyongyang drafted a new operational regulation – rejected by Seoul – that would have allowed the North to detain South Korean businessmen in Kaesong in the event of an unresolved business dispute.
Some wore masks over their faces to avoid a throng of reporters at the border crossing.
The government’s move was slammed as “utterly incomprehensible” by the Kaesong company owners who said their businesses were being destroyed by politics.
It wasn’t clear whether all of the South Korean managers in Kaesong were evacuated before the North’s deadline.
South Korea’s military has strengthened defense readiness, while more closely monitoring moves of DPRK forces, against possible DPRK provocations in border areas following the shutdown of the Kaesong complex.
World leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, and other nations have also spoken out condemning the launch.
One worker said he believes all of the remaining South Koreans have now left the Kaesong industrial park.
“The most important point of Japan’s own sanctions is to clearly show that we have strengthened our stance”, the official said.
The industrial park has been declared a military control zone, the North’s agency that handles ties with the South said in a statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency. The report didn’t elaborate on what that meant.
The North’s statement by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea was issued via the Korean Central News Agency. 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.
Immediately after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test on January 6, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe talked by phone with U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
A source familiar with North Korean affairs also told Reuters that Ri had been executed.
North Korea has previously cut off cross-border communication channels in times of tension with South Korea, but they were later restored after animosities eased.
On Wednesday evening an additional 130 South Koreans entered the zone to help their fellow southerners pack up, and trucks brought all of them back over the border within hours.
Opened in 2004 as a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, the project had – until now – proved remarkably immune to the regular upheavals in North-South relations.
The South Korean military unveiled four more pieces of debris from North Korea’s long range missile launched Sunday.
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Jang’s remarks reflected a general sense of outrage among Kaesong’s South Korean business community over the shutdown order.
