North Korea blows up ‘useless’ liaison office with South Korea
■ Office was dormant since Jan. corona outbreak
Seoul, June 16: North Korea blew up an interKorean liaison office on its side of the border on Tuesday, after days of increasingly virulent rhetoric from Pyongyang.
The demolition came after Kim Yo Jong — the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — said at the weekend the “useless north-south joint liaison office” would soon be seen “completely collapsed”
Footage of the explosion released by Seoul’s presidential Blue House showed a blast rolling across several buildings just across the border in Kaesong, with a nearby tower partially collapsing as clouds of smoke rose into the sky.
Analysts say Pyongyang may be seeking to manufacture a crisis to increase pressure on Seoul while nuclear negotiations with Washington are at a standstill.
After an emergency meeting, the National Security Council said that it would “react strongly” if Pyongyang “continues to take steps that aggravate the situation”.
“All responsibility for repercussions stemming from this action falls squarely on the North,” it added.
The liaison office — in a
dormant industrial zone where Southern companies once employed Northern workers — was opened in September 2018, days before the South’s President Moon Jae-in flew to Pyongyang for his third summit with Mr Kim.
Around 20 officials from each side were stationed at the office during subsequent months. But interKorean relations soured following the collapse of the Hanoi summit between Mr Kim and US President Donald Trump in February last year over sanctions relief and what the North would be willing to give up in return.
Operations at the office were suspended in January because of the coronavirus pandemic.
And since early June, North Korea has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of the South over activists sending antiPyongyang leaflets over the border — something defectors do on a regular basis.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said on Tuesday that the liaison office’s destruction was in line with “the mindset of the enraged people to surely force human scum and those who have sheltered the scum to pay dearly for their crimes”.