Pyongyang said Monday it will suspend tours to Kaesong and halt cross-border rail services effective Dec. 1 and demanded the closure of the South Korean government’s liaison office in the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the evacuation of officials and a 50 percent reduction in the number of South Korean staff members at factories based there. It said it will close off land routes across the border to all South Korean civilian groups and business officials. But considering the financial difficulties faced by small- and mid-sized South Korean businesses, North Korea said it will guarantee the business operations of the companies based in the complex. That effectively ends all cross-border cooperation.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday said the six-party nuclear talks would resume on Dec. 8. Following the U.S. presidential election, North Korea held meetings in New York not only with Bush administration officials, but with aides to president-elect Barack Obama. While trying to subdue the Lee Myung-bak administration by severing relations, North Korea is engaging in textbook maneuvers to isolate South Korea and deal directly with the U.S. by leaving open external channels of communications it needs to maintain power over its population.

If North Korea thinks it can succeed, then it is seriously mistaken. In the Kaesong complex, 84 South Korean businesses have factories employing around 33,000 North Korean workers, and those jobs provide more than W300 billion (US$1=W1,513) in cash to the North Korean regime each year. A total of 110,000 South Korean tourists have visited Kaesong city on package tours that began last December, and the North made around W16 billion from those tours. Those are sizable amounts of money for North Korea.

There is no chance, by contrast, that the Obama administration will volunteer to serve as the economic savior of North Korea. Rather, most of the economic aid packages that could result from a resolution in the nuclear impasse require South Korean cooperation to be achieved. If the Lee administration takes on this financial responsibility while North Korea keeps its borders closed, then the South Korean public will vehemently oppose it. The actions North Korea has taken in recent weeks are tantamount to shooting itself in the foot. Our government should maintain its principles in dealing with the North while refraining from any comments or acts that could exacerbate the situation.

(englishnews@chosun.com )