Seoul:
The first officials expelled from a joint industrial park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong returned to South Korea on Wednesday, as North Koreans continued to react angrily to Seoul's claims that Pyongyang attacked and sank a South Korean navy ship in March this year.
On Tuesday North Korea said it would expel all South Korean government officials working at the joint industrial park, and South Korean ships and airliners would be banned from passing through its territory.
On Wednesday, the North cut off some cross-border communication links and expelled eight South Korean government officials from Kaesong, South Korea's Unification Ministry said.
One of the officials, Lee Soo-young, head of South-North Economic Cooperation Office returned to the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine office in South Korea on Wednesday, to be greeted by reporters.
He did not comment on the expulsion.
Other workers also returned from Kaesong after a day's work.
North Korea has now announced that long term stay at the joint industrial complex is not allowed.
Relations between the two Koreas have rapidly deteriorated since last week, when a team of international investigators concluded that a torpedo from a North Korean submarine tore apart the South Korean warship on March 26, killing 46 South Korean sailors.
The North flatly denies involvement in the sinking of the Cheonan, one of the South's worst military disasters since the Korean War, and has warned that retaliation would mean war.
In a statement issued by North Korea earlier, the country warned it would "totally ban" the passage of South Korean personnel and vehicles to an inter-Korean zone in the western coastal area, apparently referring to Kaesong, if South Korea does not stop what it called "psychological warfare."
It did not mention another border crossing on the eastern side of the peninsula, which remained open.
The statement said it would shoot at and "blow up" any loudspeakers South Korea installs at the border.
Seoul dismantled such devices six years ago amid warming ties, but resumed radio broadcasts on Monday into the North and said loudspeakers would be reinstalled within weeks.
Seoul excluded Kaesong, the last remaining major joint reconciliation project that provides badly needed hard currency for Kim Jong Il's regime, from its retaliatory measures.
In Pyongyang on Wednesday, the North's state-run Workers' Daily newspaper carried a commentary describing South Korea's allegations as a "conspiratorial farce".
A North Korean veteran soldier, with the rank of Major General, was authorised to present the standpoint of North Korea's Army on the crisis.
Major General Pak Chan Su said South Korea's allegations that Pyongyang attacked the Cheonan were "groundless".
"Our enemies are taking this incident as an opportunity, clamouring for some kind of 'sanction' and 'punishment', but we will confront them with an indiscriminate counter attack of our style," he said.
He highlighted Seoul's plans to restart broadcasts across the demilitarised zone dividing the two Koreas as "psychological warfare", and said that if South Korean authorities go ahead with this, "they will pay dearly for it."
Pyongyang citizens also reacted to the news using phrases which are commonly used in the North Korean media to describe Pyongyang's official opinion of the administration of South Korean President Lee Myung Bak.
North Koreans routinely refer to South Korea's government as a "puppet" of America, or as "traitors" to Korea.
The North and South have technically remained at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Relations are at their lowest point since a decade ago, when South Korea began reaching out to the North with unconditional aid as part of reconciliation efforts.
However since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in 2008, he has taken a harder line, and the South has suspended aid.