North Korea Tuesday asked South Korea not to bring birds, poultry and bird meat and eggs to the joint Gaeseong Industrial Complex, a North Korean border town, the Unification Ministry said.
Pyongyang said the measure, which will go into effect Saturday, is to prevent avian flu from spreading to the communist state, according to the ministry's spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun.
The ban from the North Korean quarantine office in the industrial park came after a South Korean soldier was reported to have contracted the disease.
On Monday, Cho, 22, who had been working in Sunchang, North Jeolla Province, with other soldiers, showed high fever and other symptoms similar to the disease after having helped bury infected chickens.
Currently, the South sends about 8.5 tons of chicken and 127,000 eggs every month to canteens in the complex, the ministry said.
The North Korean measure is not related to the current political situation on the Korean Peninsula, a ministry official said.
North Korea imposed the ban purely for concerns about health and food safety, he said.