By Sam Kim
SEOUL, Nov. 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korea said Friday it extended its day-by-day ban on trips to North Korea for the fourth straight time, extending it into the weekend amid heightened tension between the countries following a deadly artillery exchange.

   Seven people, however, will be exempted from the ban effective on Saturday because they will deliver basic supplies like gas and food to South Koreans staying at a joint factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, the Unification Ministry said.

   Citizens of the two countries are not allowed to travel across their heavily armed border without government consent. The countries remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.

   About 550 South Koreans were staying as of Friday evening at the industrial park that employs 44,000 North Korean workers, the ministry said. The number is a drop of about 230 from Tuesday, when the communist state shelled a western South Korean border island and killed two marines and two civilians.

   The ban, which took effect starting Wednesday amid safety concerns, applies to South Koreans who regularly travel to Kaesong, but it in effect restricts all cross-border trips because Kaesong is the only place South Koreans routinely visit.

   The Kaesong industrial park is considered the last remaining major symbol of reconciliation efforts between the two Koreas, whose relations have been tense in the past three years.

   Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung did not say how long the ban will be maintained.

   The Kaesong park began operating in 2004 after being agreed on in the first inter-Korean summit four years earlier.

   samkim@yna.co.kr
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