Office explosion destroys Korean detente

South Korea warned it would ‘strongly respond’ to further hostile action after North Korea blew up a joint liaison office.

The explosion of an inter-Korean liaison border office building in Kaesong, North Korea. Picture: KCNA/AP

South Korea warned it would “strongly respond” to further hostil­e action after North Korea blew up a liaison office jointly run by the two countries, in a dramatic collapse of Seoul’s diplomatic engage­ment with Kim Jong-un.

The destruction of the office, in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, came hours after Pyongyang threatened to advance ­military units into the demilit­arised zone. Such a move would ­encourage a reciprocal action by South Korea, and mark the end of two years of efforts to reduce ­tensions between them.

It would also mark the latest, and perhaps terminal, setback in US President Donald Trump’s ­efforts to persuade Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal after two summits­ failed to close the gaps between them.

The destruction of the joint liaison­ office was filmed by cam­eras in South Korea and confirmed by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency.

The agency said the explosion expressed the “mindset” of the North Korean people towards ­defectors, who have enraged Pyong­yang by dropping anti-Kim propaganda over the border by hot-air balloon. It said the action would “surely force human scum, and those who have sheltered the scum, to pay dearly for their crimes”.

The general staff of the Korean People’s Army said the razing of the office would be followed by further action on the border: “We (are) studying an action plan … to make the army advance again into the zones that had been demilitarised under the North-South agreement, turn the frontline into a fortress and further heighten the military vigilance against the South.”

South Korea later warned the North that any further action could not be ignored. “The government expresses strong regret over North Korea’s unilateral detonation of the inter-Korean liaison office building,” a spokesman for the presidential Blue House said.

“We sternly warn that we will strongly respond to it if North Korea takes any action that furthe­r worsens the situation. The government makes it clear that all responsibility of this situation lies in the North.”

The liaison office, where offic­ials from both sides worked under one roof, was the first permanent official South Korean presence in the North since the end of the ­Korean War in 1953. It had been closed since January as a precaution against coronavirus.

The four-storey building had been part of the joint industrial complex that was abandoned by the South after a North Korean nuclear test in 2016. However, Seoul had spent $12.5m restoring it, and reopened it in 2018 amid warming relations between President Moon Jae-in and Kim.

In that year, delegates travelled to one another’s countries for two meetings, established military hotlines and cleared guard posts and landmines from their border.

The symbolic destruction of the liaison office came days after threats were issued by Kim’s sister Kim Yo-jong, who has been an ­increasingly prominent critic of the South.

“We will soon take a next ­action,” she said on Sunday. “Before­ long, a tragic scene would be seen of the North-South liaison office completely ­collapsed.”

North Korea also said it had ­rejected South Korea’s offer to send special envoys to defuse the situation. Kim Yo-jong “flatly rejected­ the tactless and sinister proposal”, KCNA reported.

It said Mr Moon “greatly favours sending special envoys for ‘tiding over crises’ and raises preposterous proposals frequently, but he has to clearly understand that such a trick will no longer work on us’’.

“The solution to the present ­crisis between the North and the South caused by the incompetence and irresponsibility of the South Korean authorities is impossible and it can be terminated only when proper price is paid.”

The Times, Reuters