By KUNA,
Tokyo : North Korea will close the land border with South Korea from December 1, in retaliation for the South’s confrontational stance, North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced Wednesday.
“The Korean People’s Army officially informed the South Korean military authorities on Wednesday that it intends to strictly restrict and cut off all the overland passages through the Military Demarcation Line,” KCNA said.
“The South Korean puppet authorities’ racket for confrontation with the DPRK is going beyond the danger level despite repeated warnings,” it said.
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
KNCA also said that this will be North Korea’s first step of retaliatory measures against the South, indicating that further actions would follow depending on South Korea’s policy.
Seoul should never forget that current inter-Korean relations are at the crucial crossroads of existence and total severance, the report said.
The warning comes as the North has been angered by South Korean civic groups which have flown leaflets carrying anti-North Korea remarks over the border into the North using balloons.
Last month, Pyongyang warned that it would expel South Koreans from the inter-Korean industrial complex in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, unless Seoul prevents the groups from flying balloons carrying the leaflets.
It has also threatened to totally freeze bilateral exchanges with the South if Lee Myung-bak’s government continues to pursue hard-line policies toward the North.
Inter-Korean relations have deteriorated since conservative Lee took office in February.
The two Koreas are technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace agreement.