North Korea informed South Korea on Saturday that it will not permit a defector-turned-lawmaker to visit an inter-Korean industrial park on its soil this week, the Unification Ministry said.

The notice came a day after the Seoul government provided North Korea with the list of 24 ruling and opposition lawmakers who plan to visit the joint factory zone in the North’s border city of Gaeseong on Wednesday.

The visit is being arranged as part of the annual parliamentary inspection of President Park Geun-hye’s government which took office in February.

The South Korean lawmakers, all from the National Assembly’s foreign and unification affairs committee, include Cho Myung-chul, a former research professor at the North’s Kim Il-sung University.

Cho defected to South Korea in 1994.

“The North agreed to the committee members seeking to visit the Gaeseong complex and their schedule there,” the ministry said in a news release. “But it notified that it cannot permit Cho’s visit.” (Yonhap News)