Inter-Korean relations on the line after North Korea's threat

A visitor walks in front of a sign showing the distance to the North Korean city of Gaeseong and the South Korean capital of Seoul near a wire fence decorated with ribbons written with messages wishing for unification of the two Koreas at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, Sunday. / AP-Yonhap

Kim Yo-jong warns Pyongyang will take ‘next step' against Seoul

By Kang Seung-woo

Rather than celebrating the 20th anniversary of the first-ever inter-Korean summit that pledged increased dialogue and cooperation between the two Koreas, bilateral ties are now reverting almost to the situation before the historic event.

There has been a buildup of tense confrontation and the possibility of war after Pyongyang recently threatened to end its relationship with Seoul and take military action.

The development comes after Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's powerful sister and first vice department director of the ruling Workers' Party's Central Committee, issued a statement Saturday night following hostile rhetoric from two other senior officials against the Moon Jae-in administration, all within a 24-hour period.

Experts believe that the North's recent announcements are not just its traditional bluffing and that the joint liaison office may be the first victim in its mounting hostility toward the South in accordance with a long-arranged roadmap. They added that inter-Korean ties are expected to remain chilly for the time being with few signs of reconciliation.

"I feel it is high time to surely break with the South Korean authorities," Kim said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Saturday, two days before the 20th anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration, a result of the first inter-Korean summit in 2000, that sought mutual understanding and development of South-North relations.

"Before long, a tragic scene of the useless South-North joint liaison office completely collapsed would be seen," she said.

The liaison office, located in the North's city of Gaeseong, was one of the key achievements from an inter-Korean summit between Moon and Kim Jong-un on April 27, 2018, with the office opening five months after the talks. Previously, Kim Yo-jong threatened to shut the office, angered by the South's "failure" to stop North Korean defectors and activists from sending anti-North leaflets across the border tethered to balloons. To protest this the North cut all communication channels with the South, June 9.

In her latest statement, Kim has presented her direst threat to the South, saying the North "will soon take the next action" ― that would be carried out by its military.

"If I drop a hint of our next plan the South Korean authorities are anxious about, the right to take the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to the general staff of our army. Our army, too, will determine something for cooling down our people's resentment and surely carry it out."

Her warning was backed up by Kwon Jong-gun, director-general of the North Korean foreign ministry's American Affairs Department who hinted at the country expanding its nuclear capabilities.

"I want to make it clear that we will continue to build up our force in order to overpower the persistent threats from the United States, and such efforts of ours are in fact continuing at this point of time," he told the KCNA, hours ahead of the Kim's statement.

Park Won-gon, a professor of international politics at Handong Global University, said the North will take practical action to shut down the joint office.

"The liaison office is virtually shut down now as the communication line is cut off and her remarks mean that her country will never resume its operation," he said.

Kim Dong-yub, a professor of North Korean studies at Kyungnam University's Institute of Far Eastern Studies, said, "I do not think that it is a situation, in which we can just sit back and watch, given that Kim mentioned the military would carry out something to comfort the people's resentment."

"A provocation may occur near the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea, where inter-Korean clashes have taken place over the years."

Park said a possible scenario for the North's military action could be to open artillery gun ports near the NLL, which violates the military agreement that bans all hostile acts along the border.

"Furthermore, it could carry out artillery live-fire exercises north of the NLL as it did last November against Changrin Islet," he added.

Amid the growing gravity of the situation, the South Korean government is scrambling to uncover the North's intentions.

According to Cheong Wa Dae, Chung Eui-yong, director of the presidential National Security Office, presided over an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, Sunday morning, with the participation of the foreign, unification and defense ministries and other officials to review the North Korean threats and the current security situation as well as the South's response.

Later in the day, the unification ministry urged the North to comply with past inter-Korean agreements, while the defense ministry said that the military was maintaining a watertight combat posture in response to possible military provocation from the North.

The U.S. State Department also responded to the Kim statement, Saturday, urging the North to avoid provocations and return to negotiations.

Meanwhile, despite growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, U.S. President Donald Trump said his country was not the "policemen of the world."

"It is not the duty of U.S. troops to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have never heard of," he said during a commencement ceremony of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

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