Pyongyang has already banned South Koreans from entering, but Kim Yang-Gon, secretaryof the party's Central Committee, said Pyongyang would now "temporarily suspend the operations in the zone and examine the issue of whether it will allow its existence or close it".
At the July meeting of the party Central Committee, for example, Secretary General Le Kha Phieu repeatedly invoked the name of Ho Chi Minh to justify party policy.