Reuters reported on Tuesday that North Korea has blown up an inter-Korean liaison office building in Kaesong, a town located just north of the South Korean border. Due to the coronavirus, the office had been closed since January.

South Korean surveillance video appears to show that an adjacent building, used to house South Korean officials who staffed the liaison office, had partially collapsed during the explosion.

North Korean state media outlet KCNA reported, “The north-south joint liaison office was completely ruined on Tuesday. The relevant field of the DPRK put into practice the measure of completely destroying the north-south joint liaison office in the Kaesong Industrial zone in the wake of cutting off all communication ties between the north and the south, corresponding to the mindset of the enraged people to surely force human scum and those, who have sheltered the scum, to pay dearly for their crimes.” North Korea refers to defectors as “human scum”. //

Deputy National Security Advisor Kim You-geun told reporters [...]
the action “broke the expectations of all people who hope for the development of inter-Korean relations and lasting peace on the peninsula. We’re making clear that the North is entirely responsible for all the consequences this might cause.”

South Korean vice unification minister Suh Ho, who co-headed the liaison office, said this move was “unprecedented in inter-Korean relations” and a “nonsensical act that should have not happened”.

Ahead of the explosion, the situation had been tense for several days. Kim Yo Jong (sister of Kim Jong Un), a senior official of the ruling Workers’ Party, appears to be playing a larger role in the government’s affairs. On Saturday, state media reported that Kim “had ordered the department in charge of inter-Korean affairs to “decisively carry out the next action”. According to the report, she said, “Before long, a tragic scene of the useless north-south joint liaison office completely collapsed would be seen”.