NK Looking for Excuse to Restrict Border Access

A group of North Korean military officials have carried out a "surprise" inspection of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, a joint industrial park with South Korea in the North, government officials said Tuesday.

The inspection started Monday on an abrupt notice and may continue until

Wednesday. Observers say Pyongyang appears to be trying to find an excuse to close down the complex or restrict border access to the area as the possibility has been raised of the North's involvement in the sinking of the Navy frigate Cheonan.

The inspectors complained to South Korean officials of Seoul sending anti-

Pyongyang leaflets into the North by balloons, according to an official of the Ministry of Unification.

He said eight North Korean officials, including a policy director of the National

Defense Commission, were in the joint park for a second consecutive day, Tuesday.

They visited three South Korean companies, a business support center and a

sewage plant the day before.

The move coincides with the North's military's warning on April 10 that it would soon take decisive measures against the South unless South Koreans stop sending leaflets, video tapes and DVDs aimed at toppling the reclusive regime.

North Korea experts point out that this is reminiscent of a similar inspection on

November 6, 2008, which followed the shooting death of a South Korean tourist by a North Korean soldier at the Mt. Geumgang resort in July 2008.

Six days later, the North announced that it would temporarily ban South Korean

access to the park, shut down the liaison office for North-South economic

cooperation there, reduce the number of South Korean workers in the complex and suspend tour programs to its border town of Gaeseong.

Some 110 South Korean firms employ about 42,000 North Korean workers in the

Gaesong complex, the last symbol of reconciliatory efforts made by previous

administrations. The industrial park, born out of the first inter-Korean summit in 2000, began operating in 2004.

On April 8, Pyongyang announced that it would "entirely reevaluate" the park and

threatened that if relations do not improve, it would freeze the South Korean

government's assets near the resort area of Mt. Geumgang.

The South suspended the tours to the resort in 2008 after a tourist was shot to death and has said the cross-border tours will not resume until Pyongyang apologizes for the shooting.

The two Koreas held a series of negotiations earlier this month on resuming the

tours, but failed to produce any agreement.

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