ROK blocks DPRK bid to arrest its managers

The Republic of Korea said on Tuesday it had blocked a bid from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for the right to detain ROK businessmen working in the Kaesong joint industrial zone in the event of a dispute.

The Kaesong complex, which lies about 10 kilometers inside the DPRK, hosts some 100 Seoul-owned factories where 53,000 DPRK workers produce goods from clothes to watches.

Hundreds of ROK managers also work in the complex, established in 2004 as a symbol of cooperation between the two neighboring countries.

In September, Pyongyang drafted a new operational regulation that would allow the DPRK to detain ROK businessmen when there is an unresolved business dispute.

"They sent us the request to change some rules on the Kaesong complex, including making it possible to detain our entrepreneurs," an official from Seoul's Unification Ministry said.

"We rejected the request ... and there has been no word from Pyongyang on that since then," the official said.

A precious source of hard currency for the DPRK, Kaesong had until recently remained largely immune to the volatile swings in inter-Korean relations.

But in April 2013, Pyongyang effectively shut down the complex by withdrawing its workforce during a spike in military tensions.

Kaesong reopened five months later, but the shutdown raised concerns over the safety of ROK citizens working there.

In an effort to prevent any future closures, Pyongyang and Seoul created a joint committee to oversee the industrial zone and deal with any problems related to its operations.

Yoo Chang-geun, the deputy head of the association that represents ROK companies operating in Kaesong, said, "A move like this unnerves companies like us. Who's going to invest in Kaesong if there was such a rule?"