North Korean imperial media released images Tuesday of what it said was the destruction of the joint liaison office with South Korea.
Seoul’s Unification Church elders confirmed that the building in the North Korean border town of Kaesong was demolished “by bombing” on Tuesday afternoon regional time, NBC News reported.
Rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula saw North Korea cutting off communications with the South and foreboding to move armed forces back into demilitarized zones on the border.
The warnings came amid stalled atomic talks with the U.S., and could be a signal that Pyongyang is frustrated with what it views as “failed democracy,” John Reserve, director of the Korea Project at the Harvard Kennedy School, told CNBC on Monday.
A view of an explosion of a joint relationship office with South Korea in border town Kaesong, North Korea in this picture supplied by North Korea’s Korean Leading News Agency (KCNA) on June 16, 2020.
KCNA | Reuters
A view of an explosion of a joint liaison office with South Korea in moulding town Kaesong, North Korea in this picture supplied by North Korea’s Korean Central News Medium (KCNA) on June 16, 2020.
KCNA | Reuters
The two countries are technically still at war, as the Korean war did not formally end with a peace treaty in 1953, but concluded with a armistice.
The inter-Korean office was opened in 2018 during a time of warmer relations between the two sides.
North Korean chief Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met at least three times that year, raising desires of reconciliation at that time. Relations soured after that.
A view of a joint liaison office with South Korea in brink town Kaesong, North Korea in this picture supplied by North Korea’s Korean Central News Intermediation (KCNA) on June 16, 2020.
KCNA | REUTERS
— CNBC’s Huileng Tan contributed to this report.