[caption id="attachment_36668" align="alignright" width="210"] This file photo shows South Korean soldiers setting up barricades across the road to the Kaesong joint industrial zone.[/caption]
Tens of South Korean companies have threatened to withdraw from a joint industrial zone in North Korea, as political tensions continue to rise between the two sides.
This is while representatives of the 123 firms with factories in the North Korean city of Kaesong, in North Hwanghae Province have called on Pyongyang and Seoul to resume talks in order to improve the current situation.
"The manufacturers of machinery and electronic parts cannot wait any longer. Kaesong must be reopened... or they have to move elsewhere," the representative of 46 of the related companies, Kim Hak-Kwon, said.
"It has been 92 days since the complex came to a halt... our patience has been stretched beyond its limit," Kim added.

Despite the deadlock, last month, South Korean Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea announced that it had agreed to a North Korea proposal for official talks.

Kaesong was launched inside North Korea in 2003 to boost ties between the two neighbors.

Back in May, Pyongyang blocked access to the site and withdrew its 53,000 employees.

A total of 175 South Korean staff worked at the complex. Some 125 workers left the industrial zone on April 27 after Seoul announced plans to pull out all employees from Kaesong.

South Korea pulled out the last of its workers on May 3.

The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of military rhetoric over the past few months. Seoul and Pyongyang have also accused each other of cyber attacks in recent years.

The rhetoric escalated when the United States and South Korea held joint military exercises in April, with the participation of US nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers. North Korea censured the drills and warned Washington and Seoul against a “preemptive attack,” which could develop into an “all-out war.”

By Press TV

 

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