On Saturday night, Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korea's leader, warned that Seoul will soon witness “a tragic scene of the useless North-South liaison office (in North Korea) being completely collapsed.” She also said she would leave to North Korea’s military the right to take the next step of retaliation against South Korea.
. Good thing US media is fair and balanced not propaganda pushers!! /sarcasm
North Korea did not say it was responsible for demolishing the building, but Pyongyang has issued a number of threats against Seoul in recent days. The most recent was a statement published by North Korean state media Tuesday that said Pyongyang had begun an “intensive retaliatory campaign” in response to plans by a group of defectors to use balloons to send anti-North Korean leaflets north of the DMZ.
North Korea claimed the leaflets violated the deal Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in struck in 2018 at their first summit, when both leaders agreed to cease “all hostile acts and eliminating their means, including broadcasting through loudspeakers and distribution of leaflets” along their shared border. It’s illegal for average North Koreans to consume information that is not approved by the country’s powerful propaganda machine, and doing so can carry dire consequences.
The liaison office was reopened and refurbished as part of that deal to help the two Koreas communicate, but it’s future had been thrown into doubt last week when North Korea announced it was cutting off all communication with South Korea, including a hot line meant to directly connect the leaders of the two countries, in response to the leaflets.
“The recent foolish act of daring hurt the dignity of our supreme leadership,” the statement carried in KCNA Tuesday read.
“The world will clearly see what severe punishment our people will mete out to the South Korean authorities and how they wipe the human scum off the earth.”
Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister and perhaps the second-most powerful person in the country, demanded the South Korean government punish the defectors, whom she called “betrayers,” “human scum” and “riff-raff who dared hurt the absolute prestige of our Supreme Leader representing our country and its great dignity,” according to a statement carried by North Korean state news agency KCNA on Saturday.
Kim also hinted in that statement that the North Korean liaison office would be destroyed in some manner.