|
|
|
N. Korea upends progress in inter-Korean economic cooperation
By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Nov. 28 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean train headed Friday to North Korea for its last round trip across the heavily-armed border, as Pyongyang put into action its threats to undo progress in relations with Seoul over the past decade.
The halt to the daily train service in less than a year since its historic resumption marked the start of the North's full-scale measures to cut off already-troubled inter-Korean ties.
"I am so sad that the cross-border train service will be suspended again," Shin Jang-chul, driver of the train, said. On Dec. 11 last year, Shin drove the first train to cross the border in 56 years on a reconnected railway. "I was happy at that time that the two Koreas will have a regular train service beyond a trial run in May."
Shin expressed hopes that the railway operation would resume soon, while analysts said it may take quite some time to put it back on track as long as the South's Lee Myung-bak administration maintains its tough approach toward the North.
When announcing its decision to stop the train operation, suspend South Korean tours to the ancient city of Kaesong, and "selectively" expel South Koreans at the Kaesong industrial park as of Dec. 1., the North warned these those were just "a first stage."
A convoy of buses carrying 210 South Koreans left for Kaesong on Friday morning in what would also be the final such tour. Nine South Korean officials at the inter-Korean economic cooperation office will be brought back to Seoul, with a far more number of officials and workers to pack their bags and come back over the weekend.
North Korea put the blame on the conservative South Korean government for heightened tensions after a decade of reconciliatory mood under its two liberal predecessors.
President Lee Myung-bak, elected about a year ago on support from critics of the so-called sunshine policy of engaging the North, favors reciprocity in relations with the communist neighbor. He said expansion of inter-Korean economic cooperation, promised under the two summit agreements in 2000 and 2007, should be tied with the North's denuclearization and market opening.
The Lee administration also co-sponsored a U.N. resolution denouncing Pyongyang's human rights condition last month, ending Seoul's traditional low-key approach on the issue.
lcd@yna.co.kr
(END)
|
| |
|
|
Home
