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SEOUL: North Korea has tightened controls on mobile phones at a South Korean-funded industrial estate amid worsening cross-border ties, officials said Wednesday.
The hardline communist nation issued new rules Monday banning South Korean businessmen from carrying mobile phones into the estate, said the South's unification ministry, which handles inter-Korean ties.
"The North also said it would expel South Koreans carrying unreported mobile phones from the estate after confiscating their phones," a spokesman told AFP.
Last month the North expelled hundreds of South Korean workers from the Kaesong estate and imposed strict border controls, blaming what it calls Seoul's confrontational policy.
Pyongyang has also suspended a cross-border railway service, cancelled a popular day tour and banned border crossings of South Korean cars fitted with global navigation satellite systems.
The estate, just north of the heavily fortified border, was built as a symbol of reconciliation. More than 37,000 North Koreans work at 88 South Korean firms there, earning much-needed hard currency.
Inter-Korean ties began to worsen after South Korea's conservative President Lee Myung-Bak took office in February last year.
Lee rolled back his liberal predecessors' engagement policy and linked major economic assistance to the North's willingness to make progress over denuclearisation.
The North has suspended all government-level talks.
- AFP/yb
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