North Korea on Thursday called South Korea's decision to shut down the joint industrial park in the city of Kaesong a "dangerous declaration of war" and a "declaration of an end to the last lifeline of the North-South relations," reports the Associated Press.

In response to North Korea's rocket launch and nuclear test despite several warnings, the South announced it was closing down the Kaesong Industrial Complex, run jointly by the two nations, that employs about 50,000 North Koreans.

The firms at the complex provide $100 million total income to North's workers annually. Suspending function of the park, Seoul said it would not allow Pyongyang to use the financial resources from the park to develop its nuclear weapons.

The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea responded to South's decision in a statement, in which it called South Korean President Park Geun-hye the mastermind of the shutdown and a "confrontational wicked woman" who lives upon "the groin of her American boss."

The shutdown is a "product of Park Geun-hye's inveterate sycophancy and abnormal confrontational hysteria kicked off by her at the prodding of the United States," the statement said.

North Korea has also vowed to freeze all South Korean assets and send back the South's nationals working at the complex. It also announced closure of two crucial cross-border communication hotlines and deployment of its military at the complex.

Seoul had, on Wednesday, said they would recall all South Korean workers from the park in the next few days and suspend operations of all the factories in the complex. 

The move comes after North Korea test-fired a miniaturised version of a hydrogen bomb on Jan. 6, defying the sanctions imposed by the United Nations. The international community raised doubts over its claims. Pyongyang then launched a long-range rocket on Feb. 7, which Japan, South Korea and the United States saw as a covert test of intercontinental ballistic missile technology North Korea is banned from using as per UN sanctions.