1,600 Southerners Allowed to Stay at Gaeseong Site
By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
With just two days to go before North Korea's passage restrictions at the inter-Korean border, South Korean personnel began to withdraw from North Korea Friday.
About 1,200 South Koreans returned to the South from the joint Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea, reports said. The group includes officials from the Gaeseong Industrial District Management Committee and the South-North Economic Cooperation Office.
Border-crossing railway services, which have transported cargo since December last year, were also suspended the same day.
``Officials dealing with inter-Korean economic cooperation began to leave the border city of Gaeseong,'' said Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman for the Ministry of Unification. But he refused to detail how many of them did or will return home.
North Korea announced last week that it would restrict or shut overland passages via inter-Korean border starting from Dec. 1 in retaliation for the Lee Myung-bak administration's tougher stance toward the Stalinist state.
A couple of days later, it detailed plans to bar South Koreans from traveling to its tourism enclave and halt train services.
The North also warned that more than half of South Korean officials and workers would be expelled from the joint Gaeseong Industrial Complex and tourist resorts in Gaeseong and Mt. Geumgang.
Since a South Korean female tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier in the mountain resort last July, tours to the Mt. Geumgang resort have been suspended.
Following the announcement of what North Korea calls retaliatory measures, the North notified the South that only 1600 to 1800 people could stay in Gaeseong.
``Of 4,168 people holding a one-year stay permit, about 1600-1800 have been notified that they could stay even after Dec. 1,'' said the spokesman.
``Negotiations are underway, so there is a possibility that more personnel could be allowed to stay,'' he added.
The same day, about 200 South Koreans joined the last tour to Gaeseong. A total of 111,770 South Korean tourists have traveled to the historic area, which has been open since Dec. 5 last year.
Railway services, which have operated between Bongdong in the North and Munsan in the South, also made their last chug.
Pyongyang has refused dialogue with Seoul, claiming current sour inter-Korean relations are caused by President Lee Myung-bak's denial of inter-Korean accords his predecessors, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000 and 2007, respectively.
Opposition parties have urged conservative President Lee to soften his position on the communist North.
The two Koreas technically still remain at war since the Korean War (1950-53) ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.