North Korea said Tuesday it was severing all relations with South Korea and cutting communications links in protest at claims that it had sunk one of Seoul's warships.
North Korea
said
Tuesday it was severing all relations with
South
Korea
and cutting communications
links in protest at claims that it had sunk one of
Seoul
's
warships.
The North said it would expel all South Korean personnel from a jointly run
industrial estate at Kaesong north of the border, and ban South Korean ships
and planes from its territorial waters and airspace.
The state Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said
South
Korea
's claims that it had
torpedoed a warship were tantamount to a declaration of war.
In a statement on the official news agency, it said it was freezing relations
and abrogating a non-aggression agreement.
The statement further heightened regional tensions sparked by an official
report last week, which concluded that a North Korean submarine had sunk a
South Korean corvette on March 26.
Seoul
on Monday announced a package of reprisals,
including a halt in most trade. It plans to refer the sinking to the United
Nations Security Council.
The North said it would not talk to the South again for the remainder of
President Lee Myung-Bak's term of office.
The conservative leader began a five-year term in February 2008, adopting a
tougher line towards the North than his liberal predecessors.
The North also vowed an "all-out counterattack" against the South's
decision to resume an official cross-border propaganda campaign, including
loudspeaker broadcasts.
It didn't give details but had earlier threatened to open fire at the
loudspeakers.
The North also said all inter-Korean issues would be handled "under a
wartime law" but did not elaborate.
"There is no need to show any mercy or patience for such confrontation
maniacs, sycophants and traitors and wicked warmongers as the Lee Myung-Bak
group," it said.
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