Increasingly aggressive posturing between North and South Korea escalated yesterday after Pyongyang said it would deport all "unnecessary" South Korean staff working at a resort established ten years ago to foster greater stability between the two nations.
The promised expulsion of an estimated 290 South Korean resort employees from Mount Kumgang was accompanied by further ratcheting-up of military threats from the secretive communist regime of Kim Jong Il. Even the slightest provocation, said Pyongyang through its official news agency yesterday, would draw "strong military countermeasures".
Under extreme tension since the beginning of the year, relations between the two Koreas have sharply deteriorated in recent weeks. On July 11, a South Korean tourist - one of around 1.9 million who have visited Kumgang since 1998 for an ultra-rare glimpse into the North - was shot dead. Park Wangja, a 53-year old woman from Seoul, was killed by a soldier while on a lone dawn walk. The North claim that she strayed into a restricted area, ignored orders to halt and began to run away before being shot multiple times. |