North Korea scraps companies managing relations with South as Kim Jong Un cites hostility with rival

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has abolished key authorities organizations tasked with managing relations with South Korea, state media mentioned Tuesday, as authoritarian chief Kim Jong Un mentioned he would now not pursue reconciliation together with his rival.

North Korea’s official Korean Central Information Company mentioned the choice to abolish the companies dealing with dialogue and cooperation with the South was made throughout a gathering of the nation’s rubber-stamp parliament on Monday.

The Supreme Individuals’s Meeting mentioned in a press release that the 2 Koreas have been now locked in an “acute confrontation” and that it might be a severe mistake for the North to treat the South as a companion in diplomacy.

“The Committee for the Peaceable Reunification of the Nation, the Nationwide Financial Cooperation Bureau and the (Mount Kumgang) Worldwide Tourism Administration, instruments which existed for (North-South) dialogue, negotiations and cooperation, are abolished,” the meeting mentioned, including that the North’s authorities will take “sensible measures” to implement the choice.

Throughout a speech on the meeting, Kim blamed South Korea and the USA for elevating tensions within the area. He mentioned it has develop into unimaginable for the North to pursue reconciliation and a peaceable reunification with the South.

He referred to as for the meeting to rewrite the North’s Structure in its subsequent assembly to outline South Korea because the North’s “No. 1 hostile nation,” KCNA mentioned.

The Nationwide Committee for the Peaceable Reunification has been North Korea’s primary company dealing with inter-Korean affairs since its institution in 1961.

The Nationwide Financial Cooperation Bureau and the Mount Kumgang Worldwide Tourism Administration had been set to deal with joint financial and tourism tasks between the Koreas throughout a short interval of reconciliation within the 2000s. Such tasks have been halted for years as relations between the rivals worsened over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and are banned below U.N. Safety Council resolutions in opposition to the North which have tightened since 2016.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest level in years after Kim in latest months ramped up his weapons demonstrations. The US and its allies Seoul and Tokyo responded by strengthening their mixed army workouts, which Kim has condemned as invasion rehearsals, and sharpening their nuclear deterrence methods.

Some specialists say the North may attempt to additional dial up strain in an election yr in South Korea and the USA.

North Korea earlier this month fired a barrage of artillery shells close to the disputed western sea boundary with South Korea, prompting the South to conduct comparable firing workouts within the space. Kim has additionally launched verbal threats, utilizing a political convention final week to outline South Korea because the North’s “principal enemy” and threatened to annihilate it if provoked.