North Korea axes dialogue with South, accuses Seoul of aiding defectors to insult Kim Jong-un
- Starting from noon on Tuesday, Pyongyang will end a hotline in the inter-Korean liaison office
- The North has been lashing out at South Korea over defectors sending leaflets and other material into the North
Starting from noon, the North will hang up a hotline between the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and the South’s presidential Blue House, as a first step towards ending all contact with Seoul, state news agency KCNA said.
Other communication lines, including a cross-border military hotline that plays a key role in defusing tensions along the border, will also be axed.
For the past week, Pyongyang has lashed out at Seoul for turning a blind eye to defectors flying in anti-North Korea messages via balloons, despite a 2018 inter-Korean agreement to halt all hostile acts along the border.
02:29
North Korea cuts off line of communication with ‘enemy’ South Korea
“This was a sign of hostility to all our people,” KCNA said. “We have reached a conclusion that there is no need to sit face to face with the South Korean authorities and there is no issue to discuss with them, as they have only aroused our dismay.”
“They discussed phased plans for the work against the enemy to make the betrayers and riff-raff pay for their crimes, and then, to begin with, gave an instruction to completely cut off all the communication and liaison lines between the North and the South,” KCNA said.
Pyongyang describes defectors who take part in anti-North Korea campaigns as “the riff-raff” or “human scum”.
The announcement comes even as the South’s ruling Democratic Party, which has won almost two-thirds of the 300-seat parliament in the April parliamentary elections, is moving to introduce a bill to prevent the launching of anti-North Korea messages.
Defectors and anti-Pyongyang activists have on a number of occasions released gas-filled balloons carrying leaflets sharply critical of the communist regime and its leader, despite repeated calls for an end to the campaign.
South Korean villagers stop activists from sending rice, masks to North
In 2014, North Korea shot at one of these balloons, resulting in an exchange of gunfire with South Korean troops. No damage or casualties were reported at that time.
In 2010, North Korea shelled the South’s northwestern island of Yeonpyeong in response to the South conducting a firing drill near the western sea border. Two soldiers and two civilians were killed.
“For North Korea, the release of anti-Pyongyang leaflets is a sign of the South regarding the North as its enemy, and the North is now declaring it will consider the South as the enemy in response,” said Professor Lim Eul-chul, director of the ICNK Centre at Kyungnam University.
“This means the North would not avoid armed clashes with the South in the worst case scenario.”
What would happen to North Korea if Kim Jong-un died?
Kim In-tae, an analyst from the Institute for National Security Strategy, said the breakdown in inter-Korean ties was not expected to thaw over quickly.
“This has made it more difficult for diplomacy to work. Tensions between the two sides are feared to last long,” Kim said.
Professor Yang Moo-jin, from the University of North Korean Studies, said Seoul was acting too slowly to stop the defectors.
“The South Korean government is expected to move faster in pushing the bill through parliament and the North would eventually respond positively,” Yang said.
Defectors from the North justify their actions by saying they have the constitutional right to free speech, but the South’s Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that freedom of free speech could be restrained if it put people’s lives at risk.
01:28
North and South Korea exchange gunfire along land border, a day after Kim Jong-un’s reappearance
North Korea’s military did not respond to calls by the South’s military and navy vessels, South Korea’s defence ministry said.
The two sides have been making set calls through military hotlines twice a day for technical maintenance even if there are no pending issues to discuss as a result of the 2018 inter-Korean agreements for peace.
The North also failed to answer set calls from the South through an inter-Korean liaison office at the North’s border city of Kaesong after the North’s statement.
Additional reporting by Reuters
