DPRK officials handling inter-Korean factory park remain in Kaesong: S.Korea

SEOUL, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Officials from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) handling the currently shuttered inter-Korean factory park remained at the joint liaison office in the DPRK's border town of Kaesong, South Korea's unification ministry said Monday.

Baik Tae-hyun, unification ministry's spokesman, told a routine press briefing that DPRK officials handling the Kaesong Industrial Complex were still at the inter-Korean liaison office building in Kaesong.

He declined to comment on how many DPRK officials remained at the building.

It came after the DPRK announced a decision Friday to withdraw all of its staff from the liaison office, which opened last September for the round-the-clock communications between the two Koreas.

Despite the pullout, DPRK officials handling the closed-down industrial zone stayed at the liaison office building.

The jointly-run Kaesong factory park was unilaterally closed down by South Korea in February 2016 over the DPRK's nuclear test in the previous month.

South Korean officials handling the liaison office affairs crossed the western inter-Korean border earlier in the day to Kaesong for work as usual, according to local media reports.