North Korea to redeploy military to inter-Korea cooperation sites. North Korea will redeploy troops to the inter-Korea tourist and economic sites near its border with South Korea, Pyongyang said.

The military steps come a day after it blew up an inter-Korean liaison office just north of the Korean border in an escalation of tensions between the rivals. The North’s General Staff said its military units will be deployed at the sites of the Diamond tourism project and the Kaesong industrial complex, both located just north of the heavily fortified border. Once symbols of inter-Korean cooperation, the sites have been shuttered amid animosities over North Korea’s nuclear programme for years.

Pyongyang said it would also resume military exercises and re-establish guard posts in front-line areas and fly propaganda balloons toward South Korea.

These steps means that North Korea will nullify a 2018 deal with South Korea aimed at lowering military tensions at border areas. Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, issued a separate statement saying North Korea had rebuffed a recent offer by South Korean president Moon Jae-in to send special envoys to Pyongyang to defuse animosities.

She said Mr Moon had offered to dispatch his National Security Director Chung Eui-yong and director of National Intelligence Service Suh Hun at the earliest possible date that North Korea would want.

Kim Yo Jong, who has spearheaded the North’s recent fiery rhetoric against South Korea, called Mr Moon’s offer “unrealistic” and “nonsensical” and said South Korea must pay the price for its failure to stop activists from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets toward North Korea.

On Tuesday, the North destroyed the liaison office building the border town of Kaesong, the first such inter-Korean office which the two Koreas opened in 2018 when their ties flourished. Although the building was empty and the North had previously signaled its plans to destroy it, the move is still the most provocative act by North Korea since it entered nuclear talks in 2018 after a US-North Korean standoff had many fearing war.

It was a serious setback to the efforts of Mr Moon to engage the North. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said the country destroyed the office in a “terrific explosion”. South Korea issued a statement expressing “strong regret” over the destruction of the building, warning of a stern response if North Korea takes additional steps that aggravate tensions.

Intuitively, war seems inevitable this time.

I hope all the people will be safe.

​D​ear user

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