SEOUL, March 9 (Yonhap) -- The joint inter-Korean economic cooperation zone in the North Korean city of Kaesong remains unaffected on Saturday despite heightened tensions between the two Koreas and the North's earlier threats to scrap the project in case of sanctions, officials here said.

Tensions have heightened on the Korean Peninsula after the North has sharply escalated its bellicose rhetoric in response to the U.N. Security Council's adoption of tougher sanctions against its Feb. 12 nuclear test and to the joint military exercise between Seoul and Washington. On Friday, Pyongyang vowed to ditch all non-aggression pacts with the South and to sever a hotline set up with Seoul at the truce village of Panmunjom.