More South Korean workers returned home from North Korea Saturday, a day after their government decided to pull all of them out of a troubled joint industrial complex in the communist country following Pyongyang's rejection of
an offer for dialogue.
   
A total of 175 South Koreans were staying at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the North's border city of the same name when the Seoul government announced its decision to pull them out on Friday. Of them, 125 returned home on Saturday together with one Chinese who was staying there with them.
  
All of the remaining 50 South Koreans are scheduled to return home by Monday, according to the Unification Ministry which handles cross-border affairs with North Korea.

Tension over Kaesong has been escalating since April 9 when North Korea unilaterally withdrew all of its 53,000 workers hired by 123 small-scale South Korean firms operating there.
   
The number of South Koreans at the factory zone, which usually hovered around 800, dwindled to 175 as North Korea continued to block even emergency food and medical supplies to those who remained there.
   
North Korea cited annual joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises under way since early March as one of the reasons for its action against Kaesong.
   
After its offer for dialogue to resolve the tension was rejected by North Korea, South Korea on Friday ordered all of its workers at Kaesong to pull out, a decision that has raised serious doubt about the future of the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean rapprochement. Kaesong is a byproduct of the historic inter-Korean summit in 2000.
   
In turning down the South's offer for dialogue, North Korea warned of "grave action" of its own, without giving specifics.   

The North's powerful National Defense Commission said Friday it would ensure safe passage of the South Koreans across the border.  

As to what follow-up measures will be taken by South Korea after the Kaesong workers return home, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won said at a parliamentary interpellation session that "The government will make efforts for the normalization (of the Kaesong industrial complex)."
   
Chung said that the government will take actions against the North for its stance against the South, urging the isolated country to open dialogue with Seoul.

Also on Saturday, the association of South Korean companies operating in the complex called on the government to compensate for financial damages stemming from the withdrawal.   

It also demanded that the government allow its representatives to visit the complex, take measures to protect raw materials left in Kaesong and continue to make efforts to reopen inter-Korean talks.
   
"Companies operating in Kaesong have been embarrassed by the government's decision to pull out all workers (from the complex) and are wary of a possible shutdown of the complex" Han Jae-gwon, head of the Kaesong Industrial Complex Companies Association told reporters at the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) office in Paju, about 50 kilometers northwest of Seoul. (Yonhap News)