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The move came as Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that nuclear conflict over Korea could result in even greater devastation than the Chernobyl reactor disaster of 1986.



The North, in an apparent new threat to sever all economic ties with the South, announced it plans to pull out more than 53,000 of its workers from the Kaesong complex, just north of the demilitarised zone and the biggest employer in the North’s third largest city.



Pyongyang had already banned South Koreans from entering the facility, which is funded and managed by the South.



Kim Yang-gon, secretary of the party’s central committee, said the North would now “temporarily suspend the operations in the zone and examine the issue of whether it will allow its existence or close it”.

Shutting it down completely, potentially permanently, would show the North is willing to hurt its own economy in a display of anger aimed at the South and the US.