North Korea closes border with the South

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/12/korea

The gate of South and North Korea Transit near the demilitarized zone in Goseong, South Korea. Photograph: Ahn Young-joon/AP

North Korea will halt border crossings with the South from next month, it announced today, increasing the isolation of the secretive state.

It blamed the "confrontational" approach of its neighbour, which it said had taken conflict "beyond the danger level".

Relations have deteriorated since President Lee Myung-bak took office in South Korea in February. He pledged to get tough with Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programme, but offered massive economic aid if it showed it was changing its stance.

Concerns about the tensions on the peninsula are greater because of the speculation surrounding North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-Il.

Pyongyang insists he is in good health, but intelligence services in other countries believe he may have suffered one or more serious strokes. With no obvious successor, they fear his death or incapacitation could create dangerous instability in the regime.

The North says agreements reached over the previous 10 years have been flouted since Lee took office - a claim denied by Seoul.

The official Korean Central News Agency said today the border closure would take effect from December 1. It said: "The South Korean puppet authorities should never forget that the present inter-Korean relations are at the crucial crossroads of existence and total severance."

Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said it regretted the decision and warned it would damage reconciliation efforts.

But a colleague told Reuters they did not think the North meant to close the border completely, although they were unsure.

A heavily defended demilitarised zone has divided the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953, with only two crossings.

Prohibiting passage through the zone would primarily affect a joint Korean industrial complex in Kaesong and tourism to the nearby city. South Korean companies have set up 88 factories, employing about 35,000 North Koreans and providing a crucial source of hard currency for the impoverished country. About 1,900 South Koreans live and work there.

A second crossing leads to the tourist site of Diamond Mountain. But Seoul banned its nationals from visiting after a sightseer was shot dead there in July.

Last month, North Korea threatened to reduce the South to "debris" unless it stopped groups sending leaflets attacking the regime into the communist state.

"The leaflets are going deeper into the country than before and this has increased concern in North Korea, especially because it comes at a time when there is speculation on Kim Jong-il's health," one South Korean government source told Reuters.

South Korea's human rights agency also announced yesterday that it was setting up a committee to look at abuses in the North.

"This is what the North Korean military can do in response to what they consider to be South Korea's obstinate and hawkish policies toward the North. They also want to show that previous warnings are not just empty threats," said Koh Yu-hwan, the professor of North Korea studies at Dongguk University.

this cannot be good....