North Korea’s constitution has officially defined South Korea as a “hostile state,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday as tensions on the Peninsula are at their highest point in years. Leader Kim Jong Un, pictured at a simulated counterattack drill in April, earlier this year declared South Korea the “invariable principal enemy.” File Photo by KCNA/EPA-EFE
SEOUL, Oct. 17 (UPI) — The North Korean Constitution now defines South Korea as a “hostile state,” state-run media said Thursday, in the first indication of changes made during a parliamentary meeting last week.
The North blew up sections of two roads connected with the South earlier this week as “an inevitable and legitimate measure taken in keeping with the requirement of the DPRK Constitution, which clearly defines the ROK as a hostile state,” Korean Central News Agency reported.
The DPRK and ROK are the official acronyms for North Korea and South Korea, respectively.
A North Korean Defense Ministry spokesman said that 200-foot sections of roads and railways on both coasts “have been completely blocked through blasting,” KCNA reported.
The detonations, which South Korea’s military announced on Tuesday, were “part of the phased complete separation of its territory, where its sovereignty is exercised, from the ROK’s territory,” the report said.
Neither road has been in use for years but the move is symbolic of deteriorating inter-Korean relations.
Earlier this year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called the South the “invariable principal enemy” and publicly called for a constitutional change rejecting a long-held official goal of reunification.
North Korea convened a parliamentary session to revise its constitution last week but had not revealed any details of the changes until now, as cross-border tensions between the two Koreas are at their highest point in years.
The North recently accused the South of flying drones over Pyongyang three times this month and its military announced that orders were given for eight artillery brigades along the border to be on standby to open fire.
Pyongyang has also floated thousands of trash-carrying balloons over the border since June, while both sides have engaged in Cold War-style loudspeaker broadcasts in the DMZ.