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China, meanwhile, voiced “serious concern” about rising tensions in the region, a day after North Korea said it would resume operations to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The Kaesong industrial complex, located six miles north of the heavily fortified border that has separated the two countries for the past six decades, is viewed as the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean co-operation.
The North has disrupted operations there before, but yesterday’s move is causing particular concern as South Korea and the US attempt to respond to a catalogue of provocations by Pyongyang.
There was no suggestion, however, that hundreds of South Koreans already inside the complex when the ban was imposed were being held hostage.
In recent weeks, North Korea has threatened a nuclear attack against the US and its overseas bases — a hollow threat, experts say, given the regime’s relatively primitive nuclear and missile technology — and declared a “state of war” with South Korea.
The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, told reporters in Beijing that the country’s deputy foreign minister, Zhang Yesui, had expressed “serious concern” over the crisis in a meeting with ambassadors from the US and South Korea.
“In the present situation, China believes all sides must remain calm and exercise restraint and not take actions which are mutually provocative, and must certainly not take actions which will worsen the situation,” he added.
China is the North’s only remaining ally and its biggest aid donor; that it has described the situation in such bleak terms is being interpreted as a sign of growing frustration in Beijing with the unpredictable behaviour of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
Earlier, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, described the rhetoric emanating from Pyongyang as “unacceptable”.
“What Kim Jong-un has been choosing to do is provocative. It is dangerous, reckless and the United States will not accept (North Korea) as a nuclear state,” he said.
Kerry was responding to North Korea’s announcement that it would restart its plutonium reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex and resume the production of highly enriched uranium — a move that officials in Pyongyang conceded was designed to bolster the state’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
Experts had warned that any disruption to Kaesong, which draws on investment from more than 100 South Korean firms and employs workers from both countries, would signal a swift deterioration in an already tense situation on the peninsula.
The unification ministry in Seoul said about 480 South Korean managers who had planned to travel to Kaesong yesterday morning had been prevented from crossing into the North.
“South Korea’s government deeply regrets the entry ban and urges that it be lifted immediately,” the ministry spokesman, Kim Hyung-seok, told reporters. “Ensuring the safety of our citizens is our top priority and the South Korean government will take necessary measures based on this principle.”
Of the South Korean workers who had stayed in Kaesong the previous night, three had returned by mid-afternoon local time, with about 800 more expected to follow. The unification ministry later said 46 workers would return by early evening, while the remainder would stay in Kaesong, according to the Yonhap news agency.
The country’s defence minister, Kim Kwan-jin, said he would do everything possible to ensure the safety of workers who remained inside the zone. Those contingencies reportedly include “military action” as a last resort.
Since it started producing goods in 2004, Kaesong has endured as a rare example of cross-border co-operation. It is also an important source of hard currency for the North, earning the impoverished state an estimated US$2 billion a year in trade.
About 120 South Korean firms run factories in the border town, paying more than US$80 million a year in wages to the workforce, which includes 53 000 North Koreans.
It was not clear how long the ban on workers from the South would last; permission from North Korea for employees to cross the border into its territory is granted on a daily basis. Kaesong has been the victim of diplomatic spats before, having closed briefly in March 2009 during US-South-Korea military exercises. — guardian.co.uk.
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