North Korea rejects Seoul deadline for talks

North Korean soldiers salute in front of Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the mausoleum where the bodies of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il lie embalmed, in Pyongyang on Thursday, April 25, 2013. North Korea on Thursday marked the 81st anniversary of the founding of its military, which began as an anti-Japanese militia and now has an estimated 1.2-million troops. AP

SEOUL, South Korea—North Korea on Friday rejected South Korea’s demand for talks on a jointly run factory park that has been closed nearly a month, batting back an earlier threat from Seoul with its own warning of “grave measures.”

A day earlier, Seoul had used the same language in setting a Friday deadline for Pyongyang to respond to its call for working-level discussions of the fate of the Kaesong industrial park. While neither capital is providing specifics about what those “grave measures” might be, the war of words calls into question the future of the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

The park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong is the most significant casualty so far in the recent deterioration of relations between the Koreas. Pyongyang barred South Korean managers and cargo from entering North Korea early this month, then recalled the 53,000 North Koreans who worked on the assembly lines.

An unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang’s powerful National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by state media Friday that North Korea would guarantee the safety of South Koreans if they decide to leave Kaesong. But he called Seoul’s demand for working-level talks deceptive and said similar future demands would “only speed up final destruction” of South Korea.

“If the South’s puppet group looks away from reality and pursues the worsening of the situation, we will be compelled to first take final and decisive grave measures,” the statement said.

Seoul said it set a Friday deadline for Pyongyang to respond to the call for talks because the roughly 175 workers remaining at Kaesong are running short of food and medicine. South Korea said Friday it was considering countermeasures but refused to discuss what they might be. Seoul said it had no immediate response to the statement, but South Korean President Park Geun-hye planned a meeting later Friday of ministers focusing on Kaesong.

Some analysts said Seoul’s threat of “grave measures” may signal a willingness to pull out its managers from the complex.

The dueling threats follow a lull in what had been a weeks-long period of rising hostility that saw North Korea unleashing threats of war at Washington and Seoul over joint military drills that the allies call routine and over U.N. sanctions meant to penalize Pyongyang over a nuclear test in February.

Pyongyang has recently eased its rhetoric and expressed some tentative signs of interest in dialogue, though its demands, including dismantling all U.S. nuclear weapons, go far beyond what its adversaries will accept.

Meanwhile, the military drills continue. On Friday, airplanes flew over South Korea’s southeastern city of Pohang and amphibious vessels landed on the coast. North Korea calls the drills, which are set to end Tuesday, war preparations.

“Even at this moment, South Korea is ramping up the intensity of coastal landing drills with the United States in the east, driving the already tense situation to a point of explosion,” North Korea said in its statement. It said the annual drills belie South Korea’s calls for talks.

The Kaesong complex has operated with South Korean know-how and technology and with cheap labor from North Korea since 2004. It weathered past cycles of hostility between the rivals, including two attacks blamed on North Korea in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans.

Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk, speaking ahead of North Korea’s statement, said Friday that Seoul would “take appropriate measures at an appropriate time” but would not elaborate. He said South Korea wants to restore normal operations at Kaesong.

Impoverished North Korea objects to views in South Korea that the park is a source of badly needed hard currency. South Korean companies paid salaries to North Korean workers averaging $127 a month, according to South Korea’s government. That is less than one-sixteenth of the average salary of South Korean manufacturer workers.

Pyongyang also has complained about alleged South Korean military plans in the event the North held the Kaesong managers hostage.