In a major escalation, North Korea has moved to abolish key government organisations managing relations with South Korea, as leader Kim Jong Un has made it clear that diplomacy and reunification with its rival is no longer possible in the wake of an expanded partnership between Seoul and Washington. The decision to abolish the agencies was made during a meeting of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly, according to the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency.
The North Korean Parliament said the two Koreas were locked in an "acute confrontation" and it is no longer tenable to hold the South as a partner in diplomacy. "The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, the National Economic Cooperation Bureau and the (Mount Kumgang) International Tourism Administration, tools which existed for (North-South) dialogue, negotiations and cooperation, are abolished,” the assembly said.
During a speech at the Assembly, Kim blamed the US and South Korea for raising tensions, making it impossible for Pyongyang to pursue reconciliation and reunification with the South. He also called for the assembly to rewrite the North’s Constitution in its next meeting to define South Korea as the North’s “No. 1 hostile country".
Accusing Seoul of seeking regime collapse and unification by absorption, the North Korean leader warned his country did not intend to avoid war should it happen. North Korea should also plan for "completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming" South Korea in the event of a war, and South Koreans should also no longer be referred to as fellow countrymen, Kim added.
What are these agencies?
The National Committee for the Peaceful Reunification has been North Korea’s main agency handling inter-Korean affairs since its establishment in 1961. The National Economic Cooperation Bureau and the Mount Kumgang International Tourism Administration had been set to handle joint economic and tourism projects between the Koreas during a brief period of reconciliation in the 2000s.
However, such projects have been halted for years amid strained relations over North Korea's nuclear ambitions and tightening UN sanctions on Pyongyang since 2016. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years after Kim in recent months ramped up his weapons demonstrations.
This seems to be the lowest point of intra-Korea relations as Kim is all but set to wage war on its neighbour. According to analysts, North Korea's foreign ministry could take over relations with Seoul, and potentially help justify the use of nuclear weapons against the South in a future war.
Meanwhile, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, at a cabinet meeting, said Pyongyang was being "anti-national" for calling the South a hostile country. The United States and its allies Seoul and Tokyo responded to Kim's nuclear efforts by strengthening their combined military exercises, which Kim has condemned as invasion rehearsals.
This came as North Korea on Monday flight-tested a new solid-fuel intermediate-range missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead as it pursues more powerful, harder-to-detect weapons designed to strike remote US targets in the region
Border agreement in peril
Earlier this year, in what seems like another point of deteriorating relations, South Korea accused North Korea of firing artillery rounds near its disputed sea border on Friday in violation of a fragile 2018 agreement. Seoul has reported several such drills since then.
The North Korean artillery shells all landed on the northern side of the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL) maritime border, said spokesperson Lee Sung-joon, adding that the South Korean military has been monitoring Pyongyang's moves along its shores. The drills are the first to occur in over a year and is expected to deepen the already serious animosity between the two neighbouring countries.
The Koreas' sea boundary has been the site of several bloody inter-Korean sea battles since 1999. The North's alleged torpedoing of a South Korean warship killed 46 South Korean sailors in March 2010. In November that year, North Korean artillery fired scores of rounds at Yeonpyeong island, killing four people, including two civilians, in one of the heaviest attacks on its neighbour since the Korean War ended in 1953.
The 2018 agreement requires the two Koreas to halt live-fire exercises and aerial surveillance in no-fly and buffer zones that they established along their border. However, the deal is in danger of collapsing after the two Koreas began bickering since the North's first military spy satellite launch in November.
(with inputs from agencies)
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