N. Korea holding S. Korea's Hyundai worker for 2nd day

By Kim Hyun

SEOUL, March 31 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is refusing to allow access to a South Korean worker detained for criticizing the communist regime, his firm Hyundai Asan Corp. said Tuesday, raising tension further in a possible bid to gain leverage in future talks.

Pyongyang said Tuesday it is ready to indict two U.S. journalists it is holding
on charges of illegal entry and "hostile acts." Analysts said both incidents
could be part of North Korean attempts to gain an edge in future negotiations
ahead of an imminent rocket test.
North Korea has said it will launch a communications satellite some time between
April 4 and 8, which many experts believe may be a cover for testing its
long-range missile technology. South Korea, the U.S. and Japan had earlier warned
of interception and tough sanctions, but their leaders have softened their
stances over the past few days. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said his
government will not shoot down the rocket unless it threatens U.S. territory, and
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said in the most recent interview that he
opposes a military response to North Korea's rocket launch.
On Monday, North Korea detained an engineer of Hyundai Asan, a unit of the
South's Hyundai Group that developed several economic ventures in the North, at a
joint industrial complex in the North's border town of Kaesong.
In a fax message to the Seoul government, the North said the engineer "denounced
our highly esteemed republic and schemed to degenerate and spoil our female
employee to incite defection."
Seoul officials and Hyundai could not disclose the worker's identity due to the
sensitivity of the issue, except to say he is an engineer.
"We are continuing to ask the North to allow contact with him, but there has been
no response yet," Kim Ha-young, a publicity official with the Seoul-based Hyundai
Asan, said.
There have been several cases in which South Korean workers were investigated for
allegedly violating North Korean law, but the latest case raises concern as it
comes amid heightened tensions surrounding the imminent rocket launch and frozen
political relations between the Koreas.
Yoo Ho-yeol, a North Korean studies professor at Korea University in Seoul, said
Pyongyang would want to have regional countries on full alert to maximize the
effects of its rocket launch, he said.
"North Korea has seized and is sternly dealing with what would usually have been
brushed off," Yoo said. "By raising tensions, it wants to raise its voice in
negotiations to come."
Early Tuesday, the North said the two U.S. reporters will be indicted for
"illegal entry" and "hostile acts," dampening prospects of their early release.
Euna Lee and Laura Ling, from Current TV, a San Francisco-based Internet outlet,
were taken by North Korean soldiers on March 17 on the North's border with China
while working on a story about North Korean defectors.
In Kaesong, just an hour's drive from Seoul, 101 small garment and other
labor-intensive South Korean firms are currently operating at the South
Korean-funded industrial complex, with 39,000 North Korean workers employed
there.
The Kaesong venture is the only major cross-border project that remains intact
between the two divided Koreas. Other visible projects, including tours to Mount
Kumgang and historic sites in Kaesong, an ancient Korean capital, have all been
suspended.
North Korea had barred South Korean border crossings to the joint complex several
times earlier this month in protest to an annual U.S.-South Korean joint military
exercise.
The North also expelled hundreds of South Korean workers and curtailed border
traffic in December in retaliation against the Lee Myung-bak government's tough
stance.