hankyoreh

immigration and quarantine facility near the DMZ in Paju

Land passage to and from the Gaeseong (Kaesong) Industrial Complex was halted once again by North Korea on Friday, four days after it was resumed. As a result, plans were thwarted for a visit Friday morning to the North by 611 complex officials, and 275 South Korean employees were unable to make their scheduled return home that afternoon.

Concerns about guarantees of the safety of staff members working in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex seem likely to increase following the North’s repeated blocking of civilian passage. And with some presenting the possibility that the employees unable to return will be detained, arguments are expected to grow louder that the South should not permit the entry and exit of South Korean employees without a clear promise from the North that this will not happen again.

“By 5 p.m., the North had not delivered consent forms for plans for land travel by the Gyeongui Line in and out of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex,” a government official said Friday. “As a result, visits to the North and return trips, which were scheduled to take place three times each morning and afternoon, were all cancelled.”

The official said that the government had urged North Korea’s Central Special District General Bureau to send the consent forms through the Gaeseong Industrial Complex Management Committee, but “the North didn’t give any special explanation [for the delayed consent forms], just saying, ‘Please wait, we’ll see what happens.’”

The Ministry of Unification also informed North Korea in advance Friday of a plan for transit to and from the complex on Saturday, but it is still unknown whether North Korea will consent to this. As of Friday, there are 769 South Korean workers staying in the North, with 733 at the Gaeseong complex, 35 at Mt. Geumgang and one in Pyongyang.

North Korea’s reason for blocking passage again has not been verified. “Consent forms were delivered about one to four hours late once before, because of problems with the military communications lines,” said a government official. But the possibilities are slight that a technical problem would have occurred in the process of transmitting plans and consent forms in person after just four days.

The North cut military communications with the South and blocked inter-Korean overland travel on Monday, since when correspondence has been delivered by hand. The border was reopened Tuesday.

“It could be that there’s some kind of problem in communication and the harmonizing of opinions within North Korea,” said another government official. This would suggest that the problem is a difference of opinion between the military, which opposes resuming passage during the South Korea-U.S. joint training exercises, and the department in charge of economic cooperation, whose interests hinge on the Gaeseong complex.

North Korea has lodged objections to the South Korea-U.S. training exercise known as Key Resolve, believing it to be an offensive exercise preparing the South and the U.S.-led UN Command for an invasion of the North.

Another possibility is that this is an attempt to link the transit issue with military tensions and use it to pressure Seoul once again. In particular, this means that the North wanted to send a clear, firm message to Seoul refuting analyses among South Koreans that “North Korea has no intention of closing the Gaeseong complex either” following the resumption of land passage one day after the North closed it.

Whichever analysis is correct, it is predicted that negative repercussions on the Gaeseong complex and inter-Korean relations will result from North Korea once again touching on issues directly connected with the safety of civilians. “Even if it’s because of technical or internal confusion, the problem is that it gave rise to a result that impedes the operation and activity of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex,” said Kyungnam University Professor Kim Keun-sik. “If antipathy toward North Korea grows within the South, the scope of the government’s response could be limited as well,” Kim said.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]