South Korea to withdraw staff from economic office in North Korea

North Korea announced a set of sweeping measures Monday to scale back reconciliation projects with Seoul, including suspension of a popular tour program to its ancient border city of Kaesong and a drastic cutback of South Korean workers in a nearby industrial zone.

The measures, set to take effect Dec. 1, are the latest sign of deteriorating relations between the two sides.

Tensions have been high since conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in February with a pledge to seek a tougher approach to Pyongyang than his liberal predecessors.

In March, just weeks after Lee's inauguration, Pyongyang expelled about a dozen South Korean government officials from the South's economic cooperation office in Kaesong, leaving a skeleton administrative staff.

On Wednesday, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said the South informed the North it would pull nine workers from the office on Friday.

Seoul also provided Pyongyang with a list of managers from South Korean companies who will leave Kaesong this week, Kim said. He declined to say how many are in the proposed pullout list because the number could change depending on negotiations with the North.

The two Koreas fought the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the sides still technically at war.

Their ties had significantly warmed following the first-ever summit of their leaders in 2000, but chilled again this year following Lee's election.

Lee has raised questions about implementing key accords his predecessors struck with the North's Kim that call for providing aid to the North without condition. That and other moves by Seoul, including its recent sponsorship of a U.N. resolution denouncing Pyongyang's human rights record, have enraged the North.

The communist nation has accused Lee of seeking confrontation with it, branding him a "traitor," "a pro-American sycophant" and "despicable human scum."

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