North Korea scraps all economic cooperation with South Korea

SEOUL – North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly has voted to scrap all agreements signed with South Korea on promoting economic cooperation, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported on Feb 8, as

the two Koreas’ ties continue to deteriorate.

The assembly, which takes formal steps to adopt policy decisions of the ruling Workers’ Party, also voted to abolish laws governing economic ties with Seoul, including the special law on the operation of the Mount Kumgang tourism project.

The tours to the scenic mountain just north of the eastern border were a symbol of an economic cooperation that began during a period of engagement between the two Koreas in the early 2000s, drawing nearly two million South Korean visitors.

The project was suspended in 2008 after a South Korean tourist who strayed into a restricted zone was shot and killed by North Korean guards.

Hyundai Asan, an affiliate of the Hyundai Group conglomerate which invested more than 750 billion won (S$759 million) in developing the Kumgang project, declined to comment on the report.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles ties with Pyongyang, said the North’s action was not surprising and would only deepen its isolation. Seoul does not recognise the unilateral move, an official added.

The KCNA report did not mention the North’s special law governing another major joint economic project, the Kaesong industrial zone, which at its peak housed the factories of 125 South Korean firms employing 55,000 North Koreans.

The companies pulled out, and the factory zone shuttered in 2016 when Seoul suspended the project after the North’s fifth nuclear test and long-range ballistic missile launches.

In January, Seoul closed a state-run foundation that supported the development and running of the Kaesong industrial zone, which at the time was considered a sign that it viewed the project as unlikely to be revived.

North Korea has said it considers the South as an enemy at war and in 2023 scrapped a 2018 military pact aimed at de-escalating tensions near the military border drawn up under a truce ending the 1950 to 1953 Korean War.

In a pre-recorded interview with state TV KBS aired late on Feb 7, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called the shift in North Korea’s inter-Korea policy “an extraordinary change” but said it was hard to understand the thinking behind the move. “What hasn’t changed is that the North has tried for more than 70 years to turn us into communists, and while doing that, it realised its conventional weapons were insufficient so they went on to nuclear development to threaten us,” he said.

Mr Yoon, who has taken a hard line against Pyongyang, said he remains open to engaging the North, even by holding a summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and provide aid if it would help its economy, but said the North’s leadership is “not a rational group”.

Since taking power in 2011, Mr Kim has pushed the North

to develop nuclear weapons

and ballistic missiles of various ranges, escalating tension with South Korea and the United States even as its economy languished.

KCNA separately reported that Mr Kim on Feb 7 toured factories producing consumer goods and food, and gave guidance on modernising the facilities as part of implementing a new regional development policy. REUTERS