NKorea threatens to expel southerners from resort

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

SEOUL (AFP) — North Korea on Sunday threatened to expel "unnecessary" South Koreans from a Seoul-run mountain resort in the communist state, further raising tensions over the fatal shooting of a tourist there.

A spokesman of the North's army unit stationed in the Mount Kumgang resort, north of the border, also denounced the South's leader Lee Myung-Bak a "traitor" who tries to smear Pyongyang over the incident.

"We will expel all the persons of the south side staying in the Mt. Kumgang tourist area we deem unnecessary," the spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency monitored in Seoul.

The statement said the North would "more strictly limit and control the passage" of South Koreans and their vehicles through the border to enter...