Tensions in the Korean peninsula have escalated after North Korea blew up the inter-Korean liaison office near the country’s border with South Korea.
The office, established two years ago during a period of rapprochement, was located in the joint industrial complex of Kaesong, less than 10km from the demilitarised zone that divides the two countries.
The destruction of the office, which has been empty since January due to Covid-19 restrictions, is seen as marking a sharp escalation in hostilities by Kim Jong-un towards Seoul.
The BBC reported that North Korea has repeatedly condemned the South for allowing propaganda across the border. Defector groups regularly send such material via balloons, or even drones, into the North.
It said the two states set up the office in Kaesong after talks between Kim Jong-un and his counterpart from the South, President Moon Jae-in.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul was quoted as saying: ‘North Korea’s violent destruction of the liaison office at Kaesong is a symbolic blow to inter-Korean reconciliation and co-operation.
‘It’s hard to see how such behaviour will help the Kim regime get what it wants from the world, but clearly such images will be used for domestic propaganda.’
Analysts say Pyongyang may also be seeking to create a crisis to increase its leverage as nuclear negotiations with the United States are at a standstill.
North and South Korea are technically still at war because no peace agreement was reached when the Korean War ended in 1953.