According to media reports, the DPRK authorities may have blown up the inter-Korean liaison office.
The explosion took place on Tuesday near the inter-Korean communications office in the North Korean city of Casson, BBC News reported.
Korea Herald and Yonhap News report that dense black smoke clubs are rising above the blast site. According to the South Korean Ministry of Unification Affairs, the blast destroyed the office building.
The South Korean NGO Choson Exchange, for its part, tweeted that “two days ago, an e-mail was received from North Korea saying that the inter-Korean Liaison Office in Kesong would inevitably be destroyed”.
However, according to Choson Exchange, the North Korean side pointed to “a lack of progress in (inter-Korean) relations.
The explosion took place a few hours after the DPRK military announced plans to return to the demilitarized zone.
At the end of the Korean War (1950-1953), an agreement was signed in 1953 in the village of Panmunj between North and South on the establishment of a 4 km wide demilitarized zone. It divides the Korean Peninsula into two parts, North and South Korea.
Last week, DPRK authorities announced that they are cutting off contacts with Seoul through all existing communication channels. This step followed DPRK’s protest over activists throwing propaganda leaflets from South Korean territory into North Korean territory.
On Saturday, Kim Ye-jong, the sister of DPRK leader Kim Jong-un, deputy head of the Korean Labor Party’s Central Committee department, warned that Pyongyang might use force against the South if Seoul did not stop such practices.