Paju, South Korea: The United States and its Asian allies tightened the economic screws on North Korea Thursday with the US Senate adopting fresh sanctions and South Korean firms abandoning a joint industrial park that helped fund Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.
The unilateral moves, which also included Japanese sanctions, came with UN Security Council members still stalled on how far to go in punishing the North for its latest nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.
Following Seoul's surprise decision to shut down the Kaesong industrial zone in North Korea, hundreds of South Korean trucks crossed the border Thursday morning to retrieve finished goods and equipment from the factories there.
Defending what it called an "unavoidable" decision to close the jointly-run park, Seoul said North Korea had been using the hundreds of millions of dollars in hard-currency that it earned from Kaesong to fund its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
The move was slammed as "utterly incomprehensible" by owners of the 124 South Korean companies operating factories in the estate, who said their businesses were being destroyed by politics.
'Jump off a cliff'
"It's as if we're just being ordered to jump off a cliff to our deaths," said Jeong Gi-Seob, head of the Kaesong owners' association.
While discussion of Kaesong has often focused on its financial importance to the cash-strapped North, it has also been a lucrative concern for many of the companies involved.
As well as cheap, Korean-language labour, they received preferential loans and tax breaks from the South Korean government, which effectively underwrote their investment.
Seoul has called on Pyongyang to ensure the "safe return of our citizens" amid concerns that the North Korean authorities might refuse to let everyone leave the park, which lies 10 kilometres (six miles) over the border.
In September 2014, Pyongyang drafted a new operational regulation -- rejected by Seoul -- that would have allowed the North to detain South Korean businessmen in Kaesong in the event of an unresolved business dispute.
AFP
