• Seoul: North Korea blew up the liaison office between the two countries
  • North Korea. Kim, new nuclear deterrence policies

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June 17, 2020 North Korea will return troops to the buffer zone on the border with the South, reinstall the guard posts and resume military exercises in the border area. 

The announcement came the day after North Korea destroyed an inter-Korean liaison office. It has been North Korea's most serious provocation since returning to nuclear talks in 2018. The building in the border town of Kaesong was still unused and the North had previously reported that it wanted to blow it up.

The Northern General Staff said military units will be deployed in areas of Mount Kumgang and the industrial complex of Kaesong, both north of the border. Sites, once symbols of inter-Korean cooperation, which have been closed for years due to inter-Korean controversies and sanctions imposed on North Korea because of its nuclear program.

The North said it would resume military exercises, reestablish guard posts in border areas and reopen frontline sites for propaganda balloons to fly over South Korea. 

A warning came last Saturday from Kim Yo Jong, sister of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong un, who predicted that Seoul would witness the collapse of the "useless" office in Kaesong. Furthermore, the Northern ire would have been triggered by a new launch of leaflets by activists from the South with anti-Pyongyang texts, across the border that, according to the North Korean regime, Seoul should have prevented.

The South Korean government did not immediately respond to the North Korean army's statement, but the defense ministry said Tuesday that Seoul would face North Korea's provocations forcefully.