Korean conflict comes to a head: new measure against “main enemy”

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Lerato Khumalo

Relations between North and South Korea continue to deteriorate. Now Kim wants to stop all border traffic and seal off the country.

It is the next stage in a long conflict: North Korea wants to cut off all road and rail connections to South Korea. In addition, the areas on the North Korean side should be fortified with “strong defensive structures,” the state news agency KCNA quoted the North Korean General Staff as saying. The measures should therefore begin with immediate effect.

According to the report, the General Staff justified the move as a response to recent South Korean military maneuvers. It’s about protecting national security and preventing war. The statement describes South Korea as a “primary enemy state and an immutable principal enemy.” Another reason given was the frequent stationing of US strategic nuclear weapons in the region.

According to the South Korean military, North Korea has already laid tens of thousands of landmines along the border area in recent months.

The sealing of the already few road and rail connections is primarily a symbolic measure by North Korea, as there has been no direct exchange between the two states across their militarily highly armed national border for several years.

However, this was not always the case: During the rapprochement policy between the two Koreas around the turn of the millennium, North Korea opened the Kaesong special economic zone along the border region, in which South Korean factory owners and North Korean workers produced textiles, among other things. To the east of the border, North Korea also allowed several thousand South Korean visitors to the tourist region along the Diamond Mountains (Korean: “Keumgangsan”).

However, the rhetoric has now changed significantly. At the end of 2023, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un described inter-Korean relations as those between two warring states at a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party. He had also demanded that South Korea be designated as the main enemy in the country’s socialist constitution.

The latest developments in North Korea show an increasing escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula. Kim Jong Un has also stepped up his missile tests and stepped up his nuclear rhetoric in recent months. At the same time, South Korea and the USA have expanded their military cooperation. Pyongyang sees the maneuvers as a provocation and practice for an invasion.