Global Courant
South Korea on Wednesday sued North Korea for $35 million in damages for blowing up a joint liaison office just north of their border in 2020, revealing an uptick in tensions between the rivals after the failure of larger nuclear talks between the US and North Korea.
The symbolic lawsuit filed in Seoul Central District Court comes amid a long-standing freeze on diplomacy and growing concern over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. South Korea had until Friday to claim damages, after which a three-year statute of limitations for the incident would expire.
Koo Byoungsam, spokesman for Seoul’s Ministry of Unification, which handles relations with North Korea, described North Korea’s blasting of the building as an illegal and violent act that violated previous agreements between the countries and “fundamentally foundation of mutual respect and trust.”
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There is no clear way for South Korea to force North Korea to pay if it is held liable for damages. Koo said the lawsuit, the first ever brought by the government of South Korea against the government of North Korea, was designed to circumvent the statute of limitations and preserve South Korea’s legal right to damages.
In June 2020, North Korea used explosives to blow up the South Korean-built liaison office in the North Korean border town of Kaesong after criticizing South Korea’s failure to deter North Korean defectors ballooning anti-North propaganda across the border. North Korea closed the office in January 2020 as it closed its borders over coronavirus concerns, and the building was empty at the time of the blast
An inter-Korean liaison office building in Kaesong, North Korea is demolished on June 16, 2020, in a photo provided by the North Korean government. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, file)
The building’s destruction, seen as a calculated expression of anger to pressure Seoul over stalled nuclear negotiations with Washington, was a serious setback to efforts by then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal, to go to sea with the north.
Moon met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times in 2018 as he helped set up Kim’s first summit with then US President Donald Trump in June of that year. However, diplomacy went off the rails after a second Kim-Trump summit in February 2019, where the US rejected North Korea’s demand for sweeping sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.
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Tensions have increased further in recent months as Kim used the distraction of Russia’s war against Ukraine to conduct more weapons tests, including the firing of about 100 missiles since early 2022. Kim accompanied the tests with a new nuclear doctrine that precludes pre-emptive strikes on rivals in a wide variety of scenarios where the North might think its leadership is under threat.
The current conservative South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, who has been labeled a “traitor” by the North Korean state media, has moved away from Moon’s easing policies and adopted a tougher stance on the North. Yoon has expanded the country’s military training with the United States while seeking stronger assurances from the Biden administration that the United States will swiftly and decisively use its nuclear weapons to protect South Korea in the event of a nuclear attack by North Korea. Korea.
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Meanwhile, South Korea’s spy agency said it has uncovered signs that North Korean government-backed hackers were trying to steal people’s personal information through a phishing website that mimics Naver, South Korea’s largest website.
The National Intelligence Service warned internet users to check whether they are accessing Naver via the correct domain address, naver.com. The agency has not specified whether it has confirmed actual data breaches through the fake site.
