Seoul: Pyongyang used money from joint factories for weapons

Published February 14, 2016

South Korea says most of the money it paid to North Korea for the now-shuttered jointly run industrial park was channeled into weapons programs and used to buy luxury goods for the impoverished nation's elite.

In a brief Sunday statement, the South Korean Unification Ministry says about 70 percent of the 616 billion won ($560 million) paid to the North since the park was established in 2004 was used to develop nuclear weapons, missiles and for luxury goods. It did not explain how it arrived at that percentage.

The industrial park, which Seoul shut last week after Pyongyang's rocket launch, employed some 54,000 North Koreans in more than 120 South Korean companies.

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