The announcement came amid reports of heightened activity at the North's nuclear test site, and at a missile battery, although the South Korean government denied suggestions that a fourth nuclear test was imminent.
SEOUL -- North Korea said Monday it was withdrawing all workers and suspending operations at a lucrative joint industrial zone with South Korea, blaming foreign "warmongers" at a time of acute tensions.
The announcement came amid reports of heightened activity at the North's nuclear test site, and at a missile battery, although the South Korean government denied suggestions that a fourth nuclear test was imminent.
North Korea "will withdraw all its employees" from the Kaesong industrial zone, Kim Yang-Gon, a senior ruling party official, said in a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
Pyongyang will also "temporarily suspend the operations in the zone and examine the issue of whether it will allow its existence or close it," Kim said of Kaesong, which sits 10 kilometers (six miles) inside North Korea.
Kaesong: Rare Symbol of Cooperation
Kaesong was built in 2004 as a rare symbol of cross-border economic cooperation. It is a crucial hard currency source for the impoverished North, through taxes and revenues, and from its cut of the 53,000 workers' wages.
Turnover in 2012 was reported at $469.5 million, with accumulated turnover since 2004 standing at $1.98 billion.
But Pyongyang has blocked South Korean access to Kaesong since Wednesday, forcing 13 of the 123 South Korean firms operating to halt production.
