Seoul - The South Korean government has not ruled out the possibility that North Korea may completely close a joint industrial complex in the city of Kaesong, Seoul's unification minister said Wednesday.

"I'd like to think it is an unlikely option, but we are not dismissing the possibility completely," Unification Minister Kim Ha Joong said during a parliamentary session Wednesday.

North Korea said Monday it will follow through on its threat to expel South Korean personnel from the Kaesong industrial complex just inside its border, suspend all tours to Kaesong and halt rail traffic across the border starting December 1.

South Korea has called for a recall of half of the 1,600 workers from the industrial complex by the end of the week as well as closing the inter-Korean Office for Economic Co-operation in Kaesong.

Pyongyang accuses Seoul of pursuing a confrontational policy against it.

Currently, 33,000 North Korean workers are employed at 88 South Korean factories in Kaesong. The plants are a source of foreign revenue for the impoverished North Korea.

Relationships between the two Koreas have cooled markedly since a conservative government took office in Seoul in February, pledging to link inter-Korean economic cooperation with the North's nuclear disarmament.

The two countries remain officially at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a truce and not a peace treaty. (dpa)