South Korea warned on Thursday (April 6th) that it would take "
necessary measures
" if Pyongyang continued to use a joint industrial complex in the North, once seen as a symbol of reconciliation, without permission.
“
North Korea must stop immediately.
If North Korea does not respond to our request, we will take appropriate action on the basis that it has admitted to operating the complex without permission
,” Seoul said in a notice.
The measures that could be implemented were not specified.
More than 50,000 North Korean workers once worked at the Kaesong industrial complex, making products ranging from watches to clothes for some 125 South Korean companies that provided financing and equipment.
In 2016, Seoul withdrew from the project - launched following the 2000 inter-Korean summit - in response to a nuclear test and missile strikes from the North, saying profits from Kaesong helped fund the provocations.
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But Pyongyang continued to use facilities and property belonging to South Korea without permission, South Korea's unification ministry said Thursday.
South Korea's liaison office on Thursday sent a notice requesting a halt to activities at the industrial complex, but North Korea refused to accept it, according to Seoul.
The announcement came a day after North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun published a series of photographs showing what appears to be a South Korean bus driving through Pyongyang.
The bus was believed to have been used to transport North Korean employees at the Kaesong compound before it was closed, the ministry said.
When open, the business zone was virtually the last form of economic cooperation between the two Koreas, providing valuable foreign currency to the impoverished North, as well as cheap labor and tax breaks for the businesses involved. .
North Korea has stepped up military and nuclear development efforts since the failed 2019 Hanoi summit between its leader Kim Jong Un and then-US President Donald Trump.
In March, it tested what state media described as an "
underwater nuclear attack drone
", and launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Since the beginning of 2022, authorities in Seoul and Washington have been warning of a seventh North Korean nuclear test.