NK Warning to Scare Away DMZ Tourists
By Kim Young-jin
Staff Reporter
North Korea warned Monday that continued "misuse" of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) by the United States and South Korea will lead to "unpredictable" consequences that could include loss of life.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KNCA) quoted an unnamed spokesperson of the Korean People's Army as saying South Korea is involved in "deliberate acts to turn the DMZ into theater of confrontation with the North and a site of psychological warfare."
According to KCNA, the spokesman said: "If the U.S. and the South Korean authorities persist in their wrong acts to misuse the DMZ for inter-Korean confrontation despite our warnings, these will entail unpredictable incidents including the loss of human lives."
The DMZ is the 4-kilometer buffer zone between the Koreas that was drawn up under the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. The Panmunjeom truce village within the zone is one of the most popular tourist destinations among visitors to South Korea.
The warning was apparently in reference to a tentative agreement made last month between a group of media outlets here and the South Korean government to report from inside the DMZ to mark the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the war.
The warning came at a time of heightened tension on the peninsula after an unexplained explosion sunk the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan, Friday night.
U.S. and South Korean officials, however, have all but ruled out the possibility of North Korean involvement in the incident.
The North has not issued a statement on the matter of the sunken ship through its official media.