The possibility of a withdrawal of South Korean companies from Gaeseong is looming large as Pyongyang refuses to pledge not to arbitrarily suspend operations in the industrial complex in the North Korean border town, as it did in April, causing great losses to the firms. Now the 123 companies operating factories in the complex may well make contingency pullout plans.

Reopening the industrial complex looks as elusive as when North Korea withdrew all 53,000 workers from the factories in protest against South Korean-U.S. joint military maneuvers. The gloomy prospects stem from the outcome of the talks on the issue last week, the sixth of their kind since July 6.

With the talks not moving an inch forward, the North Korean delegation said that they were on the verge of breaking down and warned that the industrial complex would have to be restored as a site for military bases. In response, the South Korean team said that, if so, Seoul would have to make a grave decision, a thinly veiled threat to withdraw the companies from the complex.

At issue is the South Korean demand for assurances that operations at the complex will not be suspended for one reason or another again. But the North is refusing to make any such commitment. The draft agreement its delegation presented to the South Korean team demanded that the South agree to refrain from all kinds of political and military behavior detrimental to stable operations at the complex.

What the North meant by political behavior undoubtedly included the mentioning of the complex in South Korean news reports as a “dollar box” and a source of hard currency for the cash-strapped Kim Jong-un regime. The North used to complain about such descriptions, claiming that they affronted the “highest dignity” of the North ― an anachronistic reference to the young North Korean leader.

By all kinds of military behavior detrimental to stable operations at the complex, North Korea unmistakably referred to a variety of joint military exercises South Korea conducts with its military ally, the United States. It was saying it could suspend operations anytime South Korea launched a joint military drill with the United States. In other words, it was refusing to guarantee it would not repeat an abrupt suspension of operations.

South Korea’s demand for compensation for damage done to the companies may be negotiable. But not the demand for a guarantee against the suspension of operations, say South Korean officials. This guarantee is an extension of the “common sense and international norms” with which the industrial complex must be operated, as the South Korean unification minister demanded in his recent letter to the Wall Street Journal.

Now North Korea will have to acknowledge that it is the South that calls the shots, not the other way around, if it wishes to keep the industrial complex as a source of hard currency in these hard times. A threat to turn the industrial complex into military bases will not prevail.