Pursuant to them, the DPRK notified the south side that a new wage pattern would be applied from March this year so that businesses of the south side might be fully ready for the new regulations.

In consideration of conditions of businessmen, the DPRK took such generous measure as extending the date of wage payment for March a week.

Nevertheless, the south Korean authorities, far from thanking the DPRK for its good faith and generosity, pulled up it over its legitimate enforcement of legislation, terming it "unilateral one violating the north-south agreement." Not content with this, they are threatening and blackmailing the businesses to prevent them from paying the wages for March while making investigations into them.

A spokesman for the General Bureau for Central Guidance to the Development of the Special Zone declared in a statement on Wednesday the KIZ is an economic special zone being operated together with businessmen of the south side and that the south Korean authorities, therefore, have neither reason nor pretext to interfere in it.

We cannot but take a serious note of the fact that the south Korean authorities are set to apply a "deposit" system to wage payment from April, something rare to be found in economic zones of other countries, in a crafty bid to use the businessmen for wantonly violating the laws and regulations in the KIZ and openly encroaching upon the sovereignty of the DPRK, the statement noted, and went on:

Businessmen of the south side should keep vigilance against this move so that they may not be scapegoats for the authorities' plot to wantonly violate the DPRK's laws and regulations in the KIZ, an encroachment upon its sovereignty.

They should seriously think once again over what they would gain by yielding to the pressure of the authorities to turn the KIZ into the one of factories without workers where business autonomy is seriously violated.

Explicitly speaking, the issue of enforcing the new labor regulations is not an issue to be discussed at the talks between authorities as it is an issue concerning the DPRK's legitimate enforcement of legislation.

The south Korean authorities should stop at once putting the brake and pressure upon the businesses' autonomous management in the KIZ and deliberately laying an obstacle in the way of the operation of the KIZ and ensure their free management.

Not only the south Korean authorities but also the commission responsible for the management of the KIZ are to blame for the situation prevailing in the zone.

If the management commission continues working hard to infringe upon the inviolable sovereignty of the DPRK, making the KIZ a political bargaining chip for someone under the manipulation of the south Korean authorities, departing from its mission, the DPRK will call it into question for the ensuing serious consequences and it would not be possible for the DPRK to entrust the management of the KIZ to the commission.

The KIZ is, in actuality, a zone for north-south economic cooperation, not a theater for confrontation between the authorities of the north and the south.

The DPRK will keep enforcing the new labor regulations for the normal development of the KIZ in the future.