Seoul - North Korea said Monday it will follow through on its threat to suspend cross-border rail service, severely limiting the land border with the South, starting next month. The measures were announced by North Korea's military, which accused the South Korean government of pursuing a confrontational policy against it. The government in Seoul said it regretted the announcement and urged the neighbouring country to enter into dialogue.
A statement by the North's military carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, said it would also expel South Korean personnel from the Kaesong industrial complex just inside its border, suspend all tours to Kaesong and halt rail traffic across the border starting December 1.
Monday's announcement is the "first step to cope with the prevailing grave situation" of Seoul's tough policy toward Pyongyang, the statement reported by Yonhap news agency said.
North Korea had warned two weeks ago that it would restrict overland passages across the inter-Korean border.
However, the operations of South Korean firms in Kaesong will continue as they should not be a "scapegoat" of the current tension, according to a separate letter North Korea sent to the firms, reported Yonhap. About 90 companies would be affected, according to North Korean authorities.
As a result, traffic over the border will be limited. However, the border crossing will not be completely closed, said a spokeswoman for the Unification Ministry in Seoul.
The communist state has recently stepped up verbal attacks against the South, repeatedly threatening to cut all ties.
"The South Korean puppets are still hell-bent on the treacherous and anti-reunification confrontational racket," said the statement from North Korea, carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
Relationships between the two Koreas have cooled markedly since a conservative government took office in Seoul in February, pledging to link inter-Korean economic cooperation with the North's nuclear disarmament.
The two countries remain officially at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.
The Kaesong industrial complex and the tours are a source of foreign revenue for the impoverished North Korea.
Regardless of the tension between the Koreas, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on her return from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Lima, said the six-party talks on the end of North Korea's nuclear programme would resume in China on December 8.
