Heads of South Korean firms operating at an inter-Korean joint industrial complex left for North Korea Monday for a meeting with their counterparts, Yonhap News reported Monday.
The one-day trip was made at the request of North Korea but the meeting's agenda has yet to be known.
Tension is rising on the Korean Peninsula, a week before the date on which North Korea said it would put into effect additional restrictions against the South as punishment for what it called Seoul's confrontational policy.
Earlier this month, the North threatened to more strictly control border crossings starting Dec. 1 unless Seoul takes a new course. The measure is feared to cripple operations in the South Korea-run industrial complex in Gaeseong, the North Korean border city.
Pyongyang has already closed its Red Cross mission and direct phone links at the truce village of Panmunjeom.
Currently, 88 small-sized South Korean garment and other labor-intensive plants are operating in Gaeseong, located just north of the heavily armed border. The businesses employ roughly 36,000 North Korean workers.
The visiting South Korean delegation includes two chiefs from the Gaeseong Industrial District Management Committee and the Corporation of Gaeseong Industrial Council, both civilian bodies that control management of the complex, Yonhap said. Chief managers of the plants will also be in attendance.
It is unknown who will represent North Korea during the meeting.
During the meeting, the North may inform the South Korean delegates of additional measures aimed at pressuring South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to change his policies, the source said. Such steps may include banning certain vehicles or South Korean personnel from entering the complex.
Inter-Korean relations have soured since the conservative Lee government took office in February. Lee has vowed that the expansion of inter-Korean projects will only follow North Korea's nuclear disarmament.
North Korea is especially upset at Seoul's reluctance to carry out a slew of cross-border economic projects that were agreed upon in the historic summits of 2000 and 2007. Those projects would require massive South Korean investment in the impoverished communist state.
North Korea has also protested the spreading of anti-Pyongyang leaflets by South Korean activist groups. South Korea's large-scale war exercises with the U.S. military and the South's participation as a sponsor of the U.N. resolution on North Korea human rights this year further agitated relations.