SEOUL, June 16 (NNN-BERNAMA) — A report from South Korea’s news agency Yonhap said that North Korea blew up the inter-Korean joint liaison office in its border town of Kaesong on Tuesday.
This sharply escalates tensions on the Korean Peninsula after near-daily threats to punish Seoul over anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets, the report said.
The North exploded the liaison office at 2:49 p.m., the unification ministry saying.
Earlier, military sources said that smoke was seen and an explosion was heard from the border town.
The explosion came just days after Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, warned Saturday night, “Before long, a tragic scene of the useless North-South joint liaison office completely collapsed would be seen.”
The North has been lashing out at the South for failing to stop defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border via balloons, Yonhap reported.
The liaison office was launched in September 2018 to facilitate inter-Korean exchange and cooperation amid a reconciliatory mood created by summit talks between their leader.
The two Koreas had suspended its operation since early January over concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, North Korea defined South Korea as an “enemy” and vowed to cut off all communication lines in anger over leaflets sent by activists in South Korea.
Meanwhile, another report said North Korea confirmed that it had “completely ruined” the inter-Korean liaison office in its border town of Kaesong.
“The relevant field of the DPRK (North Korea) put into practice the measure of completely destroying the North-South joint liaison office in the Kaesong Industrial Zone in the wake of cutting off all the communication liaison lines between the north and the south,” Yonhap reported North’s Korean Central News Agency as saying.
The 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,” KCNA said, referring to North Korean defectors in the South sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets.
“At 14:50, the liaison office was tragically ruined with a terrific explosion,” it said.
