Seoul: Pyongyang used money from joint factories for weapons


              A man walks past portraits of the late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, at the Kim Il Sung Square on Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016, in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea launched a rocket Feb. 7, carrying what it said was an Earth observation satellite into space. The U.N. Security Council condemned North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket that world leaders called a banned test of ballistic missile technology and another "intolerable provocation." The U.N.'s most powerful body pledged to quickly adopt a new resolution with "significant" new sanctions. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
A man walks past portraits of the late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, at the Kim Il Sung Square on Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016, in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea launched a rocket Feb. 7, carrying what it said was an Earth observation satellite into space. The U.N. Security Council condemned North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket that world leaders called a banned test of ballistic missile technology and another "intolerable provocation." The U.N.'s most powerful body pledged to quickly adopt a new resolution with "significant" new sanctions. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - 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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