By Kim Young-jin
The government on Monday banned citizens from going to the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea, site of an inter-Korean reconciliation project, as tension on the peninsula remains taut.
The Ministry of Unification, citing “security concerns” for South Koreans working there, said it would monitor the situation and decide on a day-to-day basis whether to recommence travel to the complex or other parts of the North.
“If the situation gets any worse, the ban could be extended,” an official of the ministry said.
Tensions have been at their highest point in decades following the North’s Nov. 23 artillery shelling of Yeonpyeong Island that killed two marines and two civilians.
On Monday, the region was on edge as Seoul readied a previously planned live-fire exercise from the island. Pyongyang, which had warned of retaliation “deadlier” than the November incident, appeared to have also made preparations for firing artillery.
Under the ban, the more than 600 citizens who were scheduled to go to work at the industrial enclave were prevented from crossing into the North.
The 200 South Koreans currently staying at the complex were not required to return to the South, but according to the ministry, more than 100 opted to do so.
It was the second such travel ban to Gaeseong since the artillery attack. Another ministry official said the drill was the “most important” factor in implementing the ban.
After the attack last month, a similar ban was imposed for several days but later lifted.
The move spurs the question of what will become of the jointly-run project, which is seen as the last piece of reconciliation between the two Koreas.
Early this month, incoming Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said during a parliamentary confirmation hearing that he would recommend to President Lee Myung-bak that the enclave be shut down as the presence of South Koreans there could hamper military responses to the North.
But analysts have said both Koreas have vested interests in keeping the project alive.
For the North, Gaeseong represents a valuable source of hard currency. The South uses it as a way to keep some form of communication with Pyongyang and gauge its stance on inter-Korean economic relations. It is also concerned for the fate of the South Korean manufacturing businesses located there.
Production at the complex began in 2004 after the project emerged out of the landmark inter-Korean summit in 2000 between the late
President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Despite strained activities between the Koreas since March, when Pyongyang was blamed for torpedoing the warship Cheonan, production appears to be moving along, with gross output in October jumping nearly 9 percent from the same month last year, according to the ministry.
Currently, 121 South Korean firms operate at Gaeseong, employing nearly 45,000 North Koreans. The companies represent some of the impoverished North’s biggest employers.
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