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DORASAN, South Korea: North Korea Monday began tightly restricting border crossings in protest at what it calls South Korea's hostile policy, a move which could hit a joint industrial estate built as a symbol of reconciliation.
South Korea said the "deeply regrettable" cutback would hamper the operations of its 88 firms at the Kaesong estate north of the border and would undermine market confidence in them.
"This measure, which is in breach of inter-Korean agreements and can never be justified, must be repealed immediately," Unification Minister Kim Ha-Joong said in a statement.
His ministry said the North is permitting only 880 South Korean managers and officials to remain at Kaesong - about half the number which South Korea says is necessary to keep the Seoul-funded complex running.
Hundreds pulled out late last week before the start of the new restrictions, which follow months of frosty cross-border ties.
The North has also suspended a cross-border cargo train which began operating a year ago in what was seen as a landmark move, and suspended a day tour programme to Kaesong city.
On Monday the road crossing at Dorasan, leading to Kaesong in the west of the peninsula, opened at 9:00 am (0000 GMT), one hour later than normal.
The North was to open its gates only six times a day - three crossings each way - compared to the normal 19.
The hardline communist state also halved the number of vehicles and people allowed to cross the heavily fortified frontier at any one time.
The first convoy of South Korean lorries and cars - totalling 150 vehicles rather than the customary 250 - crossed the border Monday in morning fog.
A North Korean military jeep escorted the vehicles on their journey to Kaesong estate, in what South Korean officials said was the normal procedure.
The North has indicated it does not want to shut down the estate, which earns it millions of dollars a year. But analysts believe this may happen if relations worsen further.
Some 35,000 North Koreans earning about US$70 a month produce items such as watches, clothes, shoes and kitchenware.
Production began in December 2004 at the estate, which brings together South Korean capital and a cheap and skilled workforce and is intended to narrow the vast wealth gap between the communist North and capitalist South.
The North is angry at conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, who has linked the prospect of major economic aid to progress in the North's nuclear disarmament, in contrast to his liberal predecessors who practised a "sunshine" engagement policy.
Pyongyang is also fuming at propaganda leaflets floated across the border by rights groups, and at Seoul's decision to censure its human rights record.
Relations worsened further in July when North Korean soldiers shot dead a Seoul housewife who strayed into a restricted military zone at the Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast.
Kumgang was the other major Seoul-funded reconciliation project. The South has suspended tours since the killing but keeps a skeleton staff there.
The crossing to Kumgang will in future open just twice a week - once in each direction - compared to four times a day previously.
"No elements are in sight that may help improve inter-Korean ties in the near future, " Professor Kim Yong-Hyun of Dongguk University told Yonhap news agency.
"When the Obama administration gets under way next year and the second stage of the six-party (denuclearisation talks) process is completed, there may emerge some momentum to turn it around."
- AFP/yb
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