North Korea said on Monday it would withdraw all its workers and suspend operations at the joint industrial zone with South Korea.

North Korea said on Monday it would withdraw all its workers and suspend operations at the joint industrial zone with South Korea.

North Korea "will withdraw all its employees from the zone", Kim Yang-Gon, a senior ruling party official, said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

At the same time, Pyongyang "will temporarily suspend the operations in the zone and examine the issue of whether it will allow its existence or close it", Kim added.

Kaesong was built in 2004 as a rare symbol of cross-border economic cooperation between the two Koreas.
Since last Wednesday, North Korea South Korean access to Kaesong, forcing 13 of the 123 South Korean firms operating to halt production.

Pyongyang had threatened to withdraw its 53,000 workers last week after the South's defense minister said there was a "military" contingency plan in place to ensure the safety of South Koreans in the complex.

"How the situation will develop in the days ahead will entirely depend on the attitude of the South Korean authorities," said Kim, who blamed the pull-out on "military warmongers" who had affronted the North's "dignity."

Monday’s announcement came amid reports of heightened activity at the North's nuclear test site, although the South Korean Defense Ministry denied suggestions that a fourth nuclear test was imminent.

BAN URGES PYONGYANG TO REFRAIN FROM “FURTHER PROVOCATION”
Meanwhile on Monday, UN Chief Ban Ki-moon made an urgent appeal to North Korea to refrain from "any further provocation.”

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea cannot go on like this, confronting and challenging the authority of the (UN) Security Council and the international community," Ban said in The Hague.

"I am urging them to refrain from taking any further provocative measures."
"This is an urgent and honest appeal from the international community including myself," Ban told a press conference alongside Netherlands Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans in The Hague, where the UN chief is to attend the third review of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

South Korea said earlier that North Korea appeared to be preparing a fourth nuclear test as well as a provocative missile launch, but later clarified that it had seen no fresh signs of preparations for a fresh nuclear test.

"There are activities" at the North's Punggye-ri test site, but they "appear to be usual routine activities", Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok said.