North Korea Blows up South Korea Liaison Office Over Leaflets Row

Tensions have been building between South Korea and North Korea over these cross-border propaganda leaflets.

South Korea said that North Korea has exploded an inter-Korean liaison office building just north of the tense Korean border. Image used for representation only. 

(Photo: iStock)

South Korea said that North Korea has exploded an inter-Korean liaison office building just north of the tense Korean border.

The destruction of the office began at 2:49 pm on Tuesday at Kaesong in the North Korean border, reported Associated Press.

North Korea had earlier issued threats to pull down the building over Seoul’s failure to stop activists from flying propaganda leaflets across the border.

For some time, tensions have been building between the two countries over these cross-border leaflets, sometimes sent via balloons.

The country appears to have acted on a warning by Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, to destroy the ‘useless’ office.

“Before long, a tragic scene of the useless North-South joint liaison office completely collapsed would be seen,” she said on Saturday, reported The Guardian.

Working with US to Monitor Military Moves: South Korea

Over the weekend, she had told that she had ordered the army to be prepared.

The military had told that it is ready to ‘turn the front line into a fortress and heighten military vigilance,’ reported BBC news.

The military said that they were strategising their ‘action plan’ to move ‘into the zones that had been demilitarised’.

South Korea's defence ministry responded on Tuesday saying it was working with the US to closely monitor military moves in the North, said the report.

“Our army is keeping a close watch on the current situation in which the (North-South) relations are turning worse and worse, and getting itself fully ready for providing a sure military guarantee to any external measures to be taken by the party and government,” said the KPA’s General Staff, reported AP.

Some experts believe that this was a move by the North to pressure the South into reviving joint economic projects amid reports of food shortages in Pyongyang, reported The Guardian.

It is still unclear what actions North Korea’s military might take against the South. North has even threatened to abandon a bilateral military agreement that was drawn in 2018 to deal with tensions across the border.

(With inputs from AP, BBC News, The Guardian)