Khushi Bhuta, Pune
North Korea’s military said it will entirely sever all land connections with South Korea, the latest in a new level of hostility between the two countries. In the latest step in a year-long series of escalating military fortifications along the heavily armed border, the North’s military said it will also close the remaining roads and railways that link the North and South.
This coming verdict by the United Nations has come at a time when North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, made a decision earlier this month after rejecting a long-standing policy about reunifying the country through peaceful means. The closure will be held on this Wednesday, an affair of great importance marking the surge in hostility between the two neighbors.
The General Staff of the Korean People’s Army said the tense military situation on the Korean peninsula now calls for more decisive and robust action in order to better protect national security, according to a notice from North Korea’s state-run news agency KCNA, referring to the country by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
North Korea has constructed its land mines and erected obstacles to anti-tanks, and has destroyed railway infrastructure, said the South Korean military. Since January, North Korea has been in an effort to strengthen its border defenses.
He has also hardened his strident rhetoric against South Korea, labeling this country the North’s “primary foe and constant main enemy,” a tactic exemplified in the most recent statement from the Korean People’s Army (KPA).
According to the KPA, these steps were taken due to its military maneuvers conducted in South Korea recently and placing U.S. strategic nuclear arms within its territories. Throughout the year, U.S. naval forces such as aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, bombers, and submarines have entered South Korea, which Pyongyang gave stern condemnation for.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday that North Korea’s latest move is a “desperate action rooted in the insecurity of Kim Jong Un’s failing regime,” and predicted it would only hasten isolation.
Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said that North Korea’s latest moves, on paper, officially confirm work already underway along its fortified border. He added that Pyongyang may be positioning itself to eventually enshrine these changes in its constitution.