North Korea announced on Thursday that its constitution now considers the South an “enemy state,” in Pyongyang’s first official confirmation of the legal changes called for by leader Kim Jong Un earlier this year.
The official North Korean News Agency also confirmed that the past few days witnessed the bombing of roads and railway lines linking North Korea and South Korea, which it considered “a legitimate and inevitable measure taken in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which clearly considers the Republic of South Korea a hostile state.” .
The agency said that these roads, which were previously used for trade between the two countries, have become “completely closed after the bombings.”
The South Korean army announced on Tuesday that the northern part of the Korean Peninsula had blown up “parts of the Gyeonggi and Donghae Roads north of the military demarcation line,” in a new episode in the series of escalating tensions between the two countries.
Provocation and recruitment
The South Korean Ministry of Unification denounced what it considered an “unnatural provocation,” explaining that it was Seoul that largely financed the construction of these roads.
As part of the clear escalation between the two sides, North Korean official media said yesterday, Wednesday, that about 1.4 million young people had applied to join or return to the army this week, and blamed Seoul for a drone provocation that pushed “the tense situation to the brink of war.”
North Korea accused its southern neighbor last week of sending marches over Pyongyang to drop a “huge number” of anti-Seoul leaflets.