North Korean soldiers salute in front of Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the mausoleum where the bodies of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il lie embalmed, in Pyongyang on Thursday, April 25, 2013.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Seoul said Friday that it has decided to withdraw the roughly 175 South Koreans still at a jointly run factory complex in North Korea, raising a major question about the survival of the last symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. 
 
 The statement by the country's minister in charge of inter-Korean relations came after North Korea rejected Seoul's demand for talks on the factory park that has been closed nearly a month. 
 
 Seoul said it issued a Friday deadline for North Korea to respond to its call for talks because it was worried about its workers not having access to food and medicine. North Korea hasn't allowed supplies or workers to cross the border since early this month. 
 
 "We've made the inevitable decision to bring back all the remaining personnel in Kaesong for the protection of our people as their difficulties continue to grow," Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said in a televised statement. He didn't take questions from reporters. 
 
 Ryoo urged North Korea to protect the property of South Korean companies at Kaesong and ensure the safety of South Korean managers when they return home. He didn't say when the withdrawal would take place. 
 
 Pyongyang's powerful National Defense Commission earlier said Seoul's demand for working-level talks was deceptive and that ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills and the spreading of anti-North Korea leaflets at the border were proof of Seoul's insincerity. 
 
 "This is a war of pride between the Koreas, but they are conducting it while leaving some room for talks," Lee Hochul, a political science professor at Incheon National University in South Korea, said, adding neither side is mentioning a permanent shutdown of the industrial complex. 
 
 "Once drills end and tension subsides, they may try to revive contact over Kaesong," Lee said. 
 
 An association of South Korean businessmen with factories in Kaesong released a statement saying they were shocked at Seoul's decision to pull the workers out. 
 
 The park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong is the most significant casualty so far in the recent deterioration of relations between the Koreas. Pyongyang barred South Korean managers and cargo from entering North Korea early this month, then recalled the 53,000 North Koreans who worked on the assembly lines. More than 800 South Korean managers were stationed in Kaesong before the ban. 
 
 "If they are truly worried about the lives of South Korean personnel in the (complex), they may withdraw all of them to the south side where there are stockpiles of food and raw materials and sound medical conditions," the statement from an unidentified spokesman for the North's National Defense Commission said Friday. It added that North Korea would guarantee the workers' safety during the withdrawal. 
 
 "If the South's puppet group looks away from reality and pursues the worsening of the situation, we will be compelled to first take final and decisive grave measures," the statement said. 
 
 The statements on Kaesong this week follow what had been something of a lull after a weeks-long tirade of warlike North Korean rhetoric that included threats of nuclear war and missile strikes. Tension rose as Seoul responded with its own tough language to Pyongyang's outburst, which was unusually violent, even by the standards of the already hostile relationship between the Koreas. 
 
 Meanwhile, the military drills continue. On Friday, airplanes flew over South Korea's southeastern city of Pohang and amphibious vessels landed on the coast. North Korea calls the drills, which are set to end Tuesday, war preparations. 
 
 "Even at this moment, South Korea is ramping up the intensity of coastal landing drills with the United States in the east, driving the already tense situation to a point of explosion," North Korea said in its statement. It said the annual drills and the scattering of North Korean leaflets along the border belie the South Korean government's calls for talks. 
 
 The Kaesong complex has operated with South Korean know-how and technology and with cheap labor from North Korea since 2004. It weathered past cycles of hostility between the rivals, including two attacks blamed on North Korea in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans. 
 
 "Seoul has executed a high-stakes gambit" by deciding to pull South Korean workers from Kaesong, said Kim Han-jung, a Yonsei University professor who once served as an aide to liberal President Kim Dae-jung, under whom the idea of the park was conceived. "The deadlock over the park is likely to persist for a long time. It will take a lot of political effort to restore it." 
 
 Both analysts said that Pyongyang could confiscate South Korean properties in Kaesong in the worst scenario as it did in 2010 at a South Korean-built mountain resort on North Korea's east coast. The cross-border tourism project came to a halt in 2008 after a South Korean tourist was fatally shot by a North Korean guard at the Diamond Mountain resort. 
 
 Impoverished North Korea objects to views in South Korea that the Kaesong park is a source of badly needed hard currency. South Korean companies paid salaries to North Korean workers averaging $127 a month, according to South Korea's government. That is less than one-sixteenth of the average salary of South Korean manufacturer workers. 
 
 Pyongyang also has complained about alleged South Korean military plans in the event the North held the Kaesong managers hostage. 
 
 A South Korean employee at Kaesong said she watched the ministry's briefing on television. She did not know whether she would leave Kaesong because her company's headquarters in the South had not called her yet. 
 
 "I've been staying here to protect our factory and our goods," she said when reached by phone, declining to be identified because her company asked her not to speak to the media. She has been in Kaesong since April 2, one day before North Korea blocked entry to South Korean workers, and has been eating rice and noodles, she said. One other colleague is staying with her. 
 
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 AP writer Youkyung Lee contributed to this report. ||||| The top South Korean official charged with handling North-South relations says the time has come for South Korean workers still at the shuttered Kaesong factory zone to return home. 
 
 
 
 Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said Friday that the government has made an "unavoidable decision" to bring about 180 South Korean workers home. 
 
 
 
 The decision came hours after North Korea rejected the South's proposal for formal negotiations to restart operations at the Kaesong complex. 
 
 
 
 Seoul gave Pyongyang 24 hours on Thursday to agree to talks, warning of a tough response if Pyongyang did not agree to the offer. 
 
 
 
 Hours after the deadline passed Friday, Pyongyang dismissed the offer and warned that it would be the first to take tough action if the South insists on worsening the situation at the border town. 
 
 
 
 South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with her security-related Cabinet ministers on Friday, regarding fate of the Kaesong complex. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Operations at Kaesong, just north of the border, have been suspended since North Korea angrily pulled its workers and blocked South Korean access to the center earlier this month. 
 
 
 
 About 180 South Koreans remain there in hopes that production can resume, but they are thought to be quickly running out of food and supplies. 
 
 
 
 Kaesong is the last remaining symbol of cooperation between the two foes, and is seen as a bellwether of Korean relations. Although work at the center has been suspended during times of heightened tensions, it has never been shut down completely since it was established in 2004. 
 
 
 
 Though Pyongyang has refrained from making daily threats of violence against the South in recent days, tensions remain high on the Korean peninsula. 
 
 
 
 North Korea is angry over U.N. Security Council sanctions passed in response to Pyongyang's February nuclear test, as well as annual joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States. ||||| North Korea on Wednesday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North, officials in Seoul said, a day after Pyongyang announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material. 
 
 South Korean army soldiers walk on the empty road after South Korean vehicles which were refused for entry to North Korea at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea, near the... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean vehicles turn back their way as they were refused for entry to North Korea's city of Kaesong, at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea, near the border village... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean Marine K-55 self-propelled howitzers are on positions during an exercise against possible attacks by North Korea near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, Wednesday, April... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean vehicles turn back their way as they were refused for entry to North Korea's city of Kaesong, at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea, near the border village... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean Marines pass by K-55 self-propelled howitzers during an exercise against possible attacks by North Korea near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, Wednesday, April 3, 2013.... (Associated Press) 
 
 The move to block South Koreans from going to their jobs at the Kaesong industrial complex, the last remaining symbol of detente between the rivals, comes amid increasing hostility from Pyongyang, which has threatened to stage nuclear and missile strikes on Seoul and Washington and has said that the armistice ending the 1950s Korean War is void. 
 
 Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said Pyongyang was allowing South Koreans to return home from Kaesong. Three workers returned Wednesday morning; dozens more were scheduled to return later. But Kim said about 480 South Koreans who had planned to travel to the park Wednesday were being refused entry. 
 
 North Korean authorities cited recent political circumstances on the Korean Peninsula when they delivered their decision to block South Korean workers from entering Kaesong, Kim said without elaborating. 
 
 It's the latest sign of deepening tensions on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea said Tuesday that it will quickly begin "readjusting and restarting" the facilities at its main Nyongbyon nuclear complex, including the plutonium reactor and a uranium enrichment plant. Both could produce fuel for nuclear weapons. Analysts saw the statement as Pyongyang's latest attempt to extract U.S. concessions by raising fears of war. Experts estimate reactivating the reactor could take anywhere from three months to a year. 
 
 The rising tide of threats in recent weeks are seen as efforts by the North to force new policies in Seoul, diplomatic talks with Washington and to increase domestic loyalty to young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by portraying him as a powerful military commander. 
 
 North Korea is angry about ongoing South Korea-U.S. military drills and new U.N. sanctions over its Feb. 12 nuclear test, its third. The Korean Peninsula technically remains in a state of war because a truce, not a peace treaty, ended the Korean War. The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent to North Korea. 
 
 The North's plutonium reactor began operations in 1986 but was shut down as part of international nuclear disarmament talks in 2007 that have since stalled. Tuesday's nuclear announcement underscores worries about North Korea's timetable for building a nuclear-tipped missile that can reach the United States, although it is still believed to be years away from developing that technology. 
 
 The North's rising rhetoric has been met by a display of U.S. military strength, including flights of nuclear-capable bombers and stealth jets at the annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that the allies call routine but that North Korea claims are invasion preparations. 
 
 The Kaesong industrial park started producing goods in 2004 and has been an unusual point of cooperation in an otherwise hostile relationship between the Koreas. 
 
 North and South Korea do not allow their citizens to travel to the other country without approval, but an exception had previously been made each day for the South Koreans working at Kaesong. 
 
 About 120 South Korean firms run factories in the border town of Kaesong, with 53,000 North Koreans working there. Using North Korea's cheap, efficient labor, the Kaesong complex produced $470 million worth of goods last year. 
 
 Pyongyang threatened last week to shut down the park, which is run with mostly North Korean labor and South Korean know-how. It expressed anger over South Korean media reports that said North Korea hadn't yet shut the park because it is a source of crucial hard currency for the impoverished country. 
 
 In 2009, North Korea closed its border gate in anger over U.S.-South Korean military drills, leaving hundreds of South Korean workers stranded in Kaesong for several days. The park later resumed normal operations. 
 
 "I feel worried that I'm unable to do business and also feel anxious," Joe In-suk, a 54-year-old South Korean who had planned to travel to Kaesong on Wednesday, said at a border checkpoint in Paju, South Korea. About a dozen South Korean trucks were lined up at the checkpoint leading into North Korea. 
 
 If North Korea continues to deny entrance to South Korean workers, it could be tantamount to a shutdown because Kaesong factories cannot operate production lines without supplies of raw materials sent regularly by truck from the South to the North. 
 
 A South Korean manager whose company runs a factory in Kaesong was worried that buyers would drop future orders if North Korea continued to block workers and supplies from the South. 
 
 "For some companies, today's move must have already dealt them a blow," the manager said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the media. "We cannot produce goods without raw material." 
 
 Seoul's Unification Ministry urged Pyongyang to "immediately normalize" cross-border traffic in and out of Kaesong. 
 
 The U.S., meanwhile, called for North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, saying it would be "extremely alarming" if Pyongyang follows through on a vow to restart its plutonium reactor. 
 
 White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. is taking steps to ensure it has the capacity to defend itself and its allies. 
 
 But Carney noted that a string of threats from North Korea toward the U.S. and South Korea so far have not been backed up by action, calling the threats part of a counterproductive pattern. He called on Russia and China, two countries he said have influence on North Korea, to use that influence to persuade the North to change course. 
 
 U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called North Korea's development of nuclear weapons a growing threat. In a telephone call Tuesday evening to Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan, Hagel said Washington and Beijing should continue to cooperate on North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. 
 
 China, North Korea's only major economic and diplomatic supporter, expressed unusual disappointment with its ally. 
 
 Hwang Jihwan, a North Korea expert at the University of Seoul, said the North "is keeping tension and crisis alive to raise stakes ahead of possible future talks with the United States." 
 
 "North Korea is asking the world, `What are you going to do about this?'" he said. 
 
 The North's nuclear statement Tuesday suggests it will do more to produce highly enriched uranium. The technology needed to make highly enriched uranium bombs is much easier to hide than huge plutonium facilities. North Korea previously insisted that its uranium enrichment was for producing electricity _ meaning low-enriched uranium. 
 
 Kim Jin Moo, a North Korea expert at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in South Korea, said that by announcing it is "readjusting" all nuclear facilities, including the uranium enrichment plant, North Korea "is blackmailing the international community by suggesting that it will now produce weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium." 
 
 The North's plutonium reactor was disabled under a 2007 deal made at now-dormant aid-for-disarmament negotiations involving the North, the U.S., South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. 
 
 In 2008, North Korea destroyed the cooling tower at Nyongbyon in a show of commitment, but the deal later stalled after the North balked at allowing intensive international fact-checking of its past nuclear activities. North Korea pulled out of the talks after condemnation of its long-range rocket launch in April 2009. 
 
 North Korea is believed to have exploded plutonium devices in its first two nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009. 
 
 There had long been claims by the U.S. and others that North Korea was also pursuing a secret uranium program. In 2010, the North unveiled to visiting Americans a uranium enrichment program at Nyongbyon. 
 
 Analysts say they don't believe North Korea currently has mastered the miniaturization technology needed to build a warhead that can be mounted on a missile, and the extent of its uranium enrichment efforts is also unclear. Some experts estimate North Korea may have enough plutonium for perhaps four to eight rudimentary bombs. 
 
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 Associated Press writers Foster Klug, Hyung-jin Kim and Youkyung Lee in Seoul and Kim Yong-ho in Paju contributed to this report. 
 
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 Follow Foster Klug on Twitter at twitter.com/APKlug; Sam Kim at twitter.com/samkim_ap; Youkyung Lee at twitter.com/YKLeeAP
– Nearly three weeks after North Korea pulled its 53,000 workers from the Kaesong Industrial Complex—a jointly managed industrial park just inside the North Korean border—the South Korean government is ordering its remaining citizens out, reports the Wall Street Journal. Despite the virtual shutdown of the complex, one of the last symbols of North-South cooperation, about 175 South Koreans had remained behind to ensure North Korea would not unilaterally confiscate the goods and machinery left there. But the AP reports Seoul was worried about its workers not having access to food and medicine; North Korea hasn't allowed supplies or workers to cross the border since early this month. Seoul had given Pyongyang 24 hours to agree to restarting talks, warning of serious consequences if the North said no, reports Voice of America. But the North let the deadline pass then issued a "no", along with a threat: If the South "pursues the worsening of the situation, we will be compelled to first take final and decisive grave measures," reads a statement issued today. "The government has made an inevitable decision to bring back home all of our citizens left behind in Kaesong for their protection," said South Korea's Unification Minister. "Their hardship is growing due to North Korea's unfair measures in Kaesong."