By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
North Korea closed Friday the inter-Korean border for the second time this week without elaborating on the reason.
The closure forced hundreds of people and vehicles to cancel their travel northwards while 275 people set to return to the South were stranded in the Kaesong Industrial Complex, just across the board in the North.
The North shut down the frontier Monday to protest the U.S.-South Korean military exercises, which are underway in the South despite North Korean opposition.
Pyongyang reopened the overland border crossings the next day, which relieved anxiety of 700-plus Southerners working in the Kaesong site. But the euphoria lasted just three days.
``Our government expresses deep regrets as this kind of situation recurs and urges immediate resumption of the inter-Korean trips,'' Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said.
Originally, the inter-Korean crossings were approved through fax lines but the North switched off them Monday together with the only remaining military hot line.
Even when the North reopened the border, it did not normalize the communication lines. Hence, the approvals of crossings were done through hand-delivered letters.
``Without specifying any reason, the North continues to tell us just to wait,'' Kim said.
Currently, more than 90 South Korean companies operate in the Kaesong complex, which was established as an outcome of the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.
A total of 769 South Koreans are currently staying in the north of the Demilitarized Zone ― 733 in the Kaesong complex, 35 in the Mt. Geumgang area and one in Pyongyang.