S. Koreans leave Kaesong complex

South Korea has pulled all 11 of its officials from a joint industrial complex in North Korea at the Pyongyang government’s request, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said today.

The North’s move came in response to the South Korean unification minister’s recent comment that Seoul will hold off on expanding the industrial zone until a dispute over the North’s nuclear programs is resolved, Kim said.

The North gave Seoul three days to pull its officials from the complex’s inter-Korean joint office, and Seoul brought them home today, Kim said. However, five South Korean civilians in the office are likely to stay, he said.

The sprawling Kaesong complex, just north of the heavily fortified border with South Korea, is a prominent symbol of reconciliation between the nations, combining the South’s technology and management expertise with the North’s cheap labor.

The leaders of the two countries agreed last year to expand the complex.

But new South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has pledged to review rapprochement projects pushed by his two liberal predecessors, saying progress in the nuclear standoff is a prerequisite for further large investment and aid projects in the North.

Sixty-nine South Korean companies operate in the zone, employing 23,220 North Koreans, according to the South’s management committee.