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North Korea has just announced that it has withdrawn from the inter-Korean liaison office, operated jointly with South Korea in the border town of Kaesong. This office was set up last September; it served to facilitate communication between the two enemy brothers, and its creation was one of the main advances of the relaxation initiated on the peninsula last year. This North Korean withdrawal takes place a few weeks after the failed denuclearization talks between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam.
With our correspondent in Seoul, Frédéric Ojardias
The North Koreans packed up, took away their files, and left behind an empty liaison office. " You can stay there alone, it does not bother us ," said the northern officials to their counterparts in the South.
Seoul immediately expressed regret and asked the regime to reconsider its decision. A decision that is seen as a message: North Korea is essentially reproaching its South Korean neighbor for blindly following US policy.
Pyongyang has a financial need for a resumption of economic exchanges with Seoul. South Korea also wants this cooperation, but it can not afford to violate international sanctions. The North is therefore pressuring the South to convince its American ally to lighten the sanctions.
By closing this liaison office, Pyongyang is hardening the tone. Since the failure of the Kim-Trump summit in February , Seoul has been concerned with last year's dismal diplomatic gains that collapsed one after the other.