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North Korea on Monday told South Korea it would completely suspend package tours to the North Korean border city of Kaesong, halt regular cross-border railway services, and cut the number of the permanent South Korean personnel at the Kaesong Industrial Complex by half as of Dec. 1. That ends all inter-Korean exchange and cooperation except the industrial park.
North Korea notified seven South Korean organizations, such as the Kaesong Industrial Complex management committee, an association of South Korean companies in the industrial park, Hyundai Asan, the operator of tours to Kaesong, and the South Korean chief delegate to the general-grade military talks. The Kaesong tours, which began in December last year, and the regular railway services between Munsan and Kaesong, will be suspended less than a year after they started. At the same time, North Korea demanded that South Korea close down its office for inter-Korean economic cooperation in Kaesong and pull all South Korean officials out.
Pyongyang said the responsibility ˇ°rests with South Korean authorities who have denied the June 15 Joint Declaration and the Oct. 4 Declaration and pursued confrontation between North and South." The North separately called a meeting of about 80 managers of South Korean businesses in the industrial park in Kaesong to tell them of its decision.
An emergency meeting in Seoul of security-related ministers chaired by Presidential Chief of Staff Chung Chung-kil agreed to ˇ°take necessary measures, giving top priority to the safety of our nationals staying in North Korea,ˇ± according to a Unification Ministry spokesman.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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