THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 16, 2020 at 18:10 JST
Smoke rises in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, seen from Paju, South Korea, on June 16. (Yonhap via AP)
SEOUL--North Korea has confirmed it destroyed an inter-Korean liaison office on Tuesday, as it continued to dial up pressure against rival South Korea amid stalled nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said the North destroyed the office to correspond 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,” apparently referring to North Korean defectors who for years have floated anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.
The news agency did not detail how the destruction of the office was carried out, but said it was “tragically ruined with a terrific explosion.”
The North, which has a long track record of pressuring South Korea when it fails to extract concessions from the United States, has repeatedly bashed the South in recent weeks over declining bilateral relations and its inability to stop leafleting by defectors and activists.
The detonation of the office came hours after the North’s military threatened to move back into zones that were demilitarized under inter-Korean peace agreements, which experts say could create security threats for the South along the land and sea borders.
See earlier story: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13462790
Seoul: North Korea blows up liaison office as tensions rise
June 16, 2020
N. Korean army ‘fully ready’ for action over South’s propaganda leaflets--KCNA
June 16, 2020
S. Korea’s leader calls on North to stop raising tensions
June 15, 2020
VOX POPULI: Drama depicts poignant divide between South and North Korea
June 15, 2020North Korea warns of retaliatory actions over defectors in South
June 14, 2020N. Korea tells South to stop ‘nonsensical’ denuke talk
June 13, 2020
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
