Early on Tuesday Japan, deployed missile-defence systems at three of their sites around Tokyo. The deployment follows North Korea’s threat to launch nuclear missiles, said Yoshihide Suga, Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan.

Suga told reporters on Tuesday that the Partiot missile batteries had been set up at the sites in the central district of Ichigaya and in the suburbs of Asaka and Narashino. The United States and South Korean officials warned that Pyongyang could be preparing for more provocation.

The comment was made a day after North Korea said it would remove all workers from, and temporarily suspend operations at the Kaesong Complex, signalling the country’s latest attempt to shut out international and regional contact. Up until Tuesday morning South Koreans had not reported for work, according to the South Korean Unification Ministry. North Korea said it would consider permanently closing down the Kaesong Complex. CNN News reports:

In a statement carried by the official North Korean news agency, Kim Yang Gon, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, accused the South of seeking “to turn the zone into a hotbed of war” against the North.

If the Kaesong Complex is closed permanently, the result would be financially costly for North Korea as the complex is the source of hard cash that supplies Kim Jung Un’s regime.

[Source: CNN News]