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North Korea Deploys Troops Amid Increasing Tensions with South Korea

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) –
A day after destroying an inter-Korean liaison office, North Korea continued to increase tensions with South Korea Wednesday, when Pyongyang announced it was sending troops to the Kaesong Industrial Zone and to Mt. Kumgang, both areas that had once been the sites of joint economic ventures between the two countries, UPI reported. The move follows two weeks of Pyongyang making angry threats against Seoul because Northern defectors have been sending balloons with information leaflets over the border.

In addition to these moves, the North said in a statement that it was reinstating guard posts that had been withdrawn from the Demilitarized Zone as part of a 2018 inter-Korean agreement aimed at reducing tensions. The North and South had each withdrawn 11 guards posts from the DMZ as part of the agreement.

“Civil police posts that had been withdrawn from the Demilitarized Zone under the north-south agreement in the military field will be set up again to strengthen the guard over the front line,” Pyonyang said in a statement published by the Korean Central News Agency. Moreover, the statement continued, North Korea will “resume all kinds of regular military exercises in the areas close to the boundary.”

Having cut off communications with the South last week, on Tuesday North Korea blew up the inter-Korean liaison office set up in 2018 in its city of Kaesong in order “to force human scum and those, who have sheltered the scum, to pay dearly for their crimes.”

Responding to the destruction of the liaison office, South Korea’s National Security Council expressed “strong regret” Tuesday and said it would “respond strongly” if the North takes further provocative actions.