North Korea blows up sections of roads linking it to the South

Photo: Ahn Young-joon Associated Press Passersby watch a South Korean news report announcing that North Korea has blown up parts of the northern side of inter-Korean roads, at Seoul Station, South Korea, on Tuesday, Oct. 15.

Claire Lee – Agence France-Presse in Seoul

Published at 6:37 a.m. Updated at 6:43 a.m.

• Asia

North Korea’s military on Tuesday blew up sections of a road once used for cross-border trade with South Korea, Seoul said, in a new episode of rising tensions between the two rival countries.

“North Korea blew up parts of Gyeongui and Donghae roads north of the military demarcation line,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, using the official name for the inter-Korean border.

The South Korean military released videos showing North Korean forces blowing up sections of both roads, as well as excavators operating the former.

South Korean forces fired “response fire” into their own territory, it added, without elaborating. details.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry denounced the provocation as “extremely abnormal,” stressing that Seoul had largely financed the construction of the roads. “North Korea is still required to repay,” it added.

Pyongyang’s main diplomatic and economic supporter, Beijing called on Tuesday to prevent “further escalation,” stressing that “tensions on the peninsula [were] against the common interests of all parties.”

The North Korean army confirmed on October 9 that it wanted to “definitively” cut the highly symbolic road and rail routes linking the two countries and build “strong defensive structures” along the border.

In practice, the border between the two Koreas is completely closed. Since the end of the war in 1953, the two inter-Korean roads and two inter-Korean railway lines have only been reopened during brief periods of détente.

In June 2020, North Korea had already blown up an inter-Korean liaison office opened in 2018 during a short-lived improvement in relations between Seoul and Pyongyang, in Kaesong, a few kilometers north of the border.

“Main enemy”

The destruction of these unused roads is a new illustration of the hardening of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s policy towards South Korea, which he has designated as “the main enemy” of his country.

In January 2024, Mr. Kim also ordered the dissolution of all institutions responsible for relations with Seoul and plans for Korean reunification. He threatened to go to war over any violation of his territory “even by 0.001 millimeters.”

Relations between the two Koreas have deteriorated significantly since conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol came to power in Seoul in 2022, a supporter of a stronger military alliance with the United States and Japan.

The three allies regularly conduct joint military exercises that Pyongyang sees as dress rehearsals for an invasion of the North.

According to North Korean state media, Kim Jong-un chaired a meeting of the country's top military officials on Monday and laid out the guidelines for “immediate military action.”

“Declaration of war”

The meeting came as the North Korean regime complained about several drone flights that it said had dropped propaganda leaflets over the capital filled with “inflammatory rumors and nonsense.”

On Sunday, the regime warned Seoul that another drone strike would be considered “a declaration of war.”

Local speculation in South Korea points to South Korean militants, who have a history of conducting propaganda campaigns toward the North, usually by balloon but sometimes by small, hard-to-detect drones.

Since May, North Korea has sent thousands of balloons loaded with garbage toward the South, prompting Seoul to resume its propaganda broadcasts by speaker along the border and to suspend a 2018 agreement intended to prevent military clashes.

After Monday's meeting of senior officials in Pyongyang, the question is “whether North Korea will respond by sending drones into the South or take strong measures if drones infiltrate its territory again,” Cheong Seong-chang, a researcher at the Sejong Institute, told AFP.

“North Korea is likely to carry out major provocations along the border if drone infiltrations continue,” he predicted.