North Korea bombed an inter-Korean liaison office building just north of its border with South Korea.
“We confirm that NK demolished the inter-Korean liaison office in Gaesong Industrial Complex by bombing at 14:49 KST (01:49 ET),” a spokesperson from South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles the nation’s relationship with North Korea, told NBC News early Tuesday.
South Korea’s national security council convened a meeting in the wake of the office’s destruction. The country’s Ministry of Defense said it is maintaining “resolute military posture” as it monitors the North Korean military.
“We are making full effort to manage the situation stably so that the situation does not escalate into a military crisis,” the ministry said in a statement. “If North Korea carries out military provocation, our military will respond with powerful force.”
Conversely, NK News, an organization that tracks North Korean state-run media, reported that the North’s KCNA said the nation had cut off all communication between the two countries.
“The north-south joint liaison office was completely ruined on Tuesday,” the statement read. “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.”
Prior to the attack, North Korea had threatened to demolish the building, alleging South Korea failed to stop activists from flying propaganda leaflets across the heavily militarized border, and to send its military into the demilitarized zone.
