N. Korea restricts access to factory

Signals anger at criticism in south

SEOUL - North Korea, one of the world's most shuttered states, pulled the curtains tighter yesterday, drastically cutting South Korean access to a joint industrial complex in the border city of Kaesong.

The border restrictions slash the number of South Koreans permitted to stay in the factory complex from 4,200 to 880, continuing an autumn of outrage during which the communist North has suspended cross-border train service with the South and curbed tourist access across the border.

North Korea's anger is focused on the government in Seoul, where President Lee Myung-bak, who came into office in February, has reversed a 10-year-old policy of giving generous and largely unconditioned aid to the North.

"The South Korean puppets are still hellbent on the treacherous and antireunification confrontational racket," North Korea said in a recent statement carried by its state-run news agency.

The truculent tone typifies the impoverished North's relations with its rich southern neighbor since Lee took power. He insists that aid and investment in the North can only follow progress in nuclear disarmament and in its abysmal record on human rights. Public support for his harder line was strengthened this year when a North Korean soldier shot dead a middle-aged South Korean woman who was taking a walk at a mountain resort in the North.

The pique coming out of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, also coincides with a season of intense speculation about the health of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader who South Korean and US intelligence analysts say suffered a stroke in August.

Although he has shown some weakness in his left arm, Kim is now fully in charge of his Stalinist-style government, intelligence officials said. But the worldwide buzz about his collapse and possible mental incapacity appears to have annoyed and upset the power structure in Pyongyang.

"Belligerence in North Korea is a direct reaction by the military there to discussions of Kim's health," said Koh Yu Hwan, a professor of political science at Dongguk University in Seoul. "Discussions of the health and private life of Kim bring into doubt the survival of his regime - and of the survival of everyone in his inner circle."

Koh said the inner circle is believed to have been "especially offended" when an official in the South Korean government told reporters in September that "we have obtained information that Kim can brush his teeth without help."

North Korea is also angry at Lee for refusing to move forward on a number of cross-border economic projects that were agreed upon in North-South summits in 2000 and 2007, when Kim met and made deals with Lee's predecessors, Roh Moo Hyun and Kim Dae Jung. Those projects commit the South to massive investment in the North.

Another reason for North Korea's unhappiness with Lee is his government's refusal to stop civic groups from using cross-border helium balloons to drop anti-Pyongyang leaflets on the North. Seoul also became a cosponsor last month of a UN resolution denouncing Pyongyang's human rights abuses.

Still, North Korea is apparently not so offended by the South that it is closing down the Kaesong industrial complex, where 35,000 North Koreans work at factories owned by 88 South Korean companies. The complex opened three years ago.

Reductions of South Korean staff and sharp cutbacks in hours during which border crossings are allowed are expected to inconvenience companies operating in Kaesong, but they will not drastically disrupt factory operations, said a South Korean who runs a factory there.