N. Korea vows to deport all S. Koreans from factory park

Associated Press

Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016 | 12:54 a.m.

PAJU, South Korea — North Korea on Thursday vowed to immediately deport all South Korean nationals and freeze all South Korean assets at a jointly run factory park in the North, a swift, aggressive response to the South Korean decision to suspend operations at the former symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

Pyongyang also said it was pulling all its workers from the Kaesong complex just across the tense border in the city of Kaesong, shutting down two crucial cross-border communication hotlines and putting the factory under its military control.

It wasn't immediately clear what had become of the hundreds of South Koreans who began shutting down their operations at Kaesong on Thursday.

The statement by the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea significantly raises the stakes in a standoff that began with North Korea's nuclear test last month and rocket launch on Sunday. South Korea's responded Thursday by suspending operations at the factory park, one of its harshest possible punishment options.

North Korea called the South's shutdown announcement a "dangerous declaration of war" and a "declaration of an end to the last lifeline of the North-South relations." Such over-the-top rhetoric is typical of the North's propaganda, but the country appeared to be backing up its language with its strong response to the South Korean suspension at Kaesong.

North Korea, in its statement, also issued crude insults against South Korea's President Park Geun-hye, saying she masterminded the shutdown and calling her a "confrontational wicked woman" who lives upon "the groin of her American boss."

The statement said the South Korean move is a "product of Park Geun-hye's inveterate sycophancy and abnormal confrontational hysteria kicked off by her at the prodding of the United States."

Seoul said it wants to stop Pyongyang from using hard currency from the park to develop its nuclear and missile programs.

The closing is meant to punish North Korea for its Sunday launch of a rocket that the world sees as a banned test of ballistic missile technology.