North Korea on Tuesday blew up a building where its officials and their South Korean counterparts had recently worked side by side, signaling its displeasure with the South after weeks of threats to end the countries’ recent truce.

South Korean border guards reportedly heard an explosion and then saw smoke rising from Kaesong, the North Korean town where the building was located.

The liason building appeared to be blown completely apart in a blast so powerful that windows in nearby buildings were also shattered, according to video footage from a South Korean surveillance camera on the border.

The South’s Unification Ministry confirmed that North Korea had demolished the four-story glass-and-steel building that housed what had been known as the joint liaison office. Hours later, the North’s official news agency said “the liaison office was tragically ruined with a terrific explosion,” adding that the action reflected “the mind-set of the enraged people” of North Korea.

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No South Koreans had worked at the office since January, when it was closed because of the coronavirus pandemic

The office, staffed by personnel from both sides, was opened in 2018, at a time when the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea had held optimistic meetingsand were discussing the possibility of broad economic cooperation.

It was the first channel for full-time, person-to-person contact between the Koreas, which have technically been at war for decades because an armistice, not a peace treaty, halted the Korean War in 1953. South Korea had considered the office an important step toward ending decades of enmity, hoping it would eventually lead to the establishment of diplomatic missions in each other’s capitals.

But relations between the Koreas have soured since then, and this month, North Korea began making the liaison office a rhetorical target.

On June 5, it threatened to close it down. Four days later, it cut off all communication lines with the South, including one that went through the liaison office. The North said it was determined to “completely shut down all contact means with South Korea and get rid of unnecessary things.”

SOURCE: Newyork TImes