Diplomatic Efforts Underway to Deal With Nk

After pulling the plug on the Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC) in North Korea, South Korea is making strong diplomatic efforts to put pressure on North Korea to pay the price for its latest nuclear and missile tests.

The measures appear to be in line with international efforts to block the flow of hard currency to the Kim Jong-un regime and put pressure on China for being reluctant to exercise its leverage on Pyongyang despite international demands, analysts said Friday.

"I'd say Seoul's actions are seen as a move to set an example on the international stage while urging its neighbors to take similar sanctions against Pyongyang," said An Chan-il, head of the World North Korea Research Center.

Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong University, said "Seoul is making sure it is a key player in international sanctions placed on North Korea, especially the secondary boycott."

Seoul shut down the inter-Korean industrial complex, Wednesday, although it was foreseeable, as claimed by a Cheong Wa Dae official, that Pyongyang would retaliate by expelling South Korean workers and freezing all assets there. North Korea did so, Thursday.

The Park Geun-hye administration suspects the industrial park in Gaeseong has been a major source of income for the reclusive state to pursue U.N.-banned nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

South Korea has also indefinitely suspended participation in the Rajin-Khasan logistics project, involving the two Koreas and Russia. The U.N. has been discussing imposing tougher sanctions against North Korea for its long-range rocket launch on Feb. 7, which is considered a ballistic missile test. The launch also comes after the secretive state's latest nuclear test on Jan. 6.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill for a secondary boycott of North Korea while Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga also announced restrictive measures.

The U.S., Japan and South Korea, three members of the six-party talks on Pyongyang's denuclearization, have sought to more effectively counter North Korea's growing military aggression. The remaining three are North Korea and its two Cold War allies...