Pyongyang blocks seven managers from South for "administrative reasons"
Seoul (AsiaNews / Agencies) - North Korea has blocked 7 citizens from the South inside the Kaesong Industrial Zone for not paying workers' wages and phone bills, but at the same time it will not allow cash to enter the area, where citizens from both sides of the peninsula try to live together and work together. This is the latest move in a back and forth of provocations and threats, involving Seoul and Pyongyang for about two months .
The last South
Korean workers left the joint industrial zone in Kaesong, once a symbol of
inter-Korean economic cooperation, overnight: According to the South Korean
Ministry of Unification " the total withdrawal of South Korean workers
from the complex under joint management was completed" .
The
43 workers who crossed the border shortly after midnight, however, were forced
to leave the 7 supervisors behind them, stopped by the North over unresolved administrative
issues: missing March salaries, industrial taxes and phone bills.
However, since
the area has been closed since April 3 on the orders of Pyongyang, the South
Koreans do not have access to cash sent to them by the government: it is on a
truck that security guards will not allow through. According
to Cho Bong-hyun, a researcher at the IBK economy Research Institute in Seoul,
"North Korea is
being illogically stubborn, demanding payment while not allowing cash
deliveries".
The
closure of the inter-Korean industrial complex was unilaterally decided by
Pyongyang in early April, the last act in a series of provocations and war
propaganda. However,
if it is not reopened the North Korean regime is likely to suffer most with
estimated loses as 100 million dollars, the average of the profits generated
from the complex annually.
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12/02/2016 15:14
14/07/2023 11:04
