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North Korea blows up Kaesong liaison office near border with South
- South Korea’s Ministry of Unification confirmed the action, which marks an escalation of tensions between the neighbours
- Earlier this month, two activist groups sent anti-Kim leaflets by balloon across the border, prompting an angry response from North Korea
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North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border on Tuesday, the South’s Unification Ministry said, after days of increasingly virulent rhetoric from Pyongyang.
“North Korea blows up Kaesong Liaison Office at 14:49,” the ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, said in a one-line alert sent to reporters.
The statement came minutes after an explosion was heard and smoke was seen rising from the long-shut joint industrial zone in Kaesong where the liaison office was located.
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The destruction of the liaison office came after Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said at the weekend: “Before long, a tragic scene of the useless north-south joint liaison office completely collapsed would be seen.”
02:44
North Korea ‘blows up’ inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong
North Korea ‘blows up’ inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong
The North’s Korean Central News Agency confirmed the liaison office building had been “tragically ruined with a terrific explosion”.
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It said the demolition was carried out, “corresponding to the mindset of enraged people to surely force human scum and those, who have sheltered the scum, to pay dearly for their crimes”.
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