North Korea Blows Up Liaison Office Shared With South Korea After Kim Jong Un's Sister Threatened Military Action

Smoke rose from the Kaesong industrial area, thought to have been the result of the North's explosion of an inter-Korean liaison office. Photo: NK News.

Yonhap said there was black smoke and a loud bang in the inter-Korean industrial park in Kaesong on June 16 when Pyongyang destroyed its liaison office with South Korea.

Responding to  Yonhap , the Unification Ministry of  South Korea  confirmed on June 16 that  North Korea  had exploded an inter-Korean liaison office. 

Citing several military sources, Yonhap said there was black smoke and a loud bang from the Kaesong town area in North Korea, near the inter-Korean border, at noon. This is the place where the inter-Korean industrial park has the same name and the liaison office between the two peninsulas.

On the morning of the same day,  Rodong Sinmun  of North Korea threatened "that the useless thing called the North-South joint liaison office will disappear without a trace".

Pyongyang announces that the next steps in retaliation will be implemented by the North Korean People's Army General Staff (KPA).

The North Korean People's Army's headquarters on the same day said it was studying "measures to return the military to demilitarized areas under an agreement between the two regions, turning the front line into a fortress and raising the scene." military sentiment towards Korea ”.

North Korea had earlier warned it would close its inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong. Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of leader Kim Jong Un and currently the first deputy head of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, announced that the Korean military is planning to take the next retaliation step for the " hostile activities "of Korea.

A South Korean police car in Paju province on June 12 prevented political activists from dropping leaflets on the inter-Korean border. Photo: Yonhap.

Over the weekend, Kim Yo Jong warned the building in Kaesong would soon "collapse". In a June 15 article in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, a North Korean Labor Party mouthpiece, Pyongyang called South Korea the "enemy" right on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the first inter-Korean summit in history. 

The newspaper also quoted local openers that they were willing to join hands "to blow up" the inter-Korean liaison office.

According to NK News , South Korea spent nearly  8.6 million USD  to renovate inter-Korean liaison office. There are currently no Korean personnel working at the building. The facility has been temporarily closed since January due to concerns about Covid-19 infection.

The office opened in 2018, after the inter-Korean summit.

Tensions on the peninsula escalated after a group of North Koreans defected their balloons to spread anti-destruction leaflets on the inter-Korean border. Pyongyang has accused Seoul of turning a blind eye to recurring hostilities at the border and retaliated by cutting all communications between the two regions.

Keasong Industrial Park is a special economic zone managed by Korea and North Korea. According to Sputnik, the industrial park has about 124 South Korean companies operating with more than 54,000 Korean workers.