North Korea on Friday rejected South Korea’s proposal for talks on the future of the Kaesong joint industrial zone, despite Seoul’s warning of "significant measures" if Pyongyang declined.

North Korea on Friday rejected South Korea's proposal for talks on the future of the Kaesong joint industrial zone, despite Seoul's warning of "significant measures" if Pyongyang declined.

South Korea on Thursday had given the North 24 hours to agree to formal negotiations on Kaesong, which has been shut down since North Korea pulled its 53,000 workers from the complex on April 9 amid soaring military tensions.

Dismissing what it called the South's "fraudulent" proposal, the North's National Defense Commission (NDC) issued a statement saying "it would be up to
us to take any final and decisive grave measures".

Insisting that South Korea was responsible for the impasse at Kaesong, the NDC said resorting to "ultimatum-like announcements... would only advance (the South's) final destruction".

The South's warning had been seen as a thinly veiled threat of a permanent withdrawal from Kaesong, which lies 10 kilometers (six miles) inside North Korea and houses 123 South Korean firms.

The NDC statement challenged Seoul to go ahead with any pullout, saying it would take all "humanitarian measures" to ensure the safety of the 175 South Koreans who have remained in the complex since the shutdown.

Established in 2004, Kaesong is the last remaining example of inter-Korean cooperation and a crucial hard currency source for the impoverished North, through taxes and revenues, and from its cut of worker wages.