North keeps out South Korean officials

NORTH Korea has blocked South Korean officials from entering the country amid growing tensions prompted by Seoul's tougher line on cross-border relations, officials said today.

They said the communist state is following through on its announcement last week that it would block South Korean officials from crossing the border and suspend all dialogue with Seoul.

Yesterday, it expelled a South Korean procurement administration official who had supervised construction of a family reunion centre at the Mount Kumgang resort north of the border.

"The North also stopped another official from the Public Procurement Service from visiting the resort Thursday night,'' Seoul's unification ministry spokesman said.

Some 200 South Korean workers are building the centre, which was expected to be complete in August.

Earlier in the week, a South Korean official from the same agency was barred from entering a joint industrial complex in the North's border city of Kaesong, the spokesman said.

The official had been supervising work on expanding the complex.

New South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak has promised a firmer line on relations, linking aid to nuclear disarmament in a move that has sparked angry rhetoric and threats from Pyongyang.

Tensions mounted after the North kicked South Korean officials out of Kaesong on March 27.

The next day, it test-fired missiles and accused Seoul of breaching the sea border.

The North has also accused the South of planning a pre-emptive attack and threatened to turn its neighbour into "ashes'' in response.

Today it renewed its attacks on Mr Lee in a commentary in the communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

The paper again blasted Mr Lee's offer to lead a massive international aid drive that would raise the North's per capita income, in return for total denuclearisation and an opening-up.

"The above-said piffle was prompted by a country pedlar's crude way of thinking - roll my log and I will roll yours,'' the paper said.

It said Mr Lee was restating a reciprocity theory "advocated by the anti-reunification traitors in South Korea in the past in a bid to deter inter-Korean relations from improving and the reunification movement from making any progress.''

The paper said the offer, which it termed an insult, "will only drive inter-Korean relations to a catastrophe and lead to the confrontation and war with fellow countrymen.''

The recent flare-up has not affected day-to-day operations at the Kumgang resort and the Kaesong complex.

Both are funded by Seoul and are major hard currency earners for the impoverished North.