DPRK military inspects joint industrial park: media

Military officials from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has started an inspection on a joint industrial complex located in the border town of Kaesong, which local media in Seoul says raises concern that the country might be moving to tighten border control.

A group of eight DPRK officials, including a policy director of the National Defense Commission, have visited the complex Monday and continued inspection there, Seoul's Yonhap News Agency reported citing an unnamed unification ministry official.

At a meeting with business operators there, the officials raised an issue of anti-Pyongyang propaganda campaigns South Korean civic group members have launched, a long-standing bone of contention between the two sides, the official told Yonhap.

The ongoing inspection raises fear that Pyongyang might restrict border access to Kaesong, as the country in December 2008 made a similar visit to the complex that culminated in the DPRK's ban on South Korean access to the area, according to Yonhap.

The once-thriving industrial park, jointly managed by the two sides, has been a historic but fragile symbol of inter-Korean relations. Some 110 South Korean companies are based in the complex, employing about 42,000 DPRK workers producing labor- intensive goods.

Source: Xinhua