Seoul: North Korea has designated South Korea a “hostile state”, its state media said on Thursday, confirming that its national assembly had amended the country’s constitution in line with their leader’s vow to drop unification as a national goal.
The North’s KCNA news agency reported road and rail links with South Korea were now completely blocked off after blasting large sections of them on Tuesday as legitimate action taken against a hostile state as defined by its constitution.
Sixty-metre (66-yard) long sections of the road and railway on its side of the border that had been laid as crossings were now completely blocked as part of a “phased complete separation of its territory” from the South, it said.
“This is an inevitable and legitimate measure taken in keeping with the requirement of the DPRK Constitution which clearly defines the ROK as a hostile state,” KCNA said, using South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
South Korea has said its policy was to continue to pursue national unification but respond with force if North Korea mounts any aggression.
North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly held a plenary session over two days last week where it had been expected to amend the constitution to officially reflect leader Kim Jong Un’s statement South Korea was a separate country and a main enemy.
State media had not reported on such a move, drawing speculation whether the change to the constitution had been postponed.
Pyongyang said last week it would cut off the inter-Korean roads and railways entirely and further fortify the areas on its side of the border as part of its push for a “two-state” system scrapping its longstanding goal of unification.
(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Chris Reese and Sonali Paul)
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