The Wall Street Journal 25 May, 2010

SEOUL—North Korea said Tuesday it will cut off all ties to South Korea, going well beyond the penalties that Seoul imposed on it a day earlier for its apparent role in the sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago. North Korea's state news agency announced the move late Tuesday, well after the usual hours when it makes statements from the country's authoritarian government.

The decision sharply escalates the tensions between the two countries in the aftermath of the March 26 sinking of South Korea's Cheonan warship.

North Korea said it would expel all South Koreans from a joint industrial complex just inside the North where about 120 South Korean companies employ about 40,000 North Koreans.

The statement also said Pyongyang will "totally abrogate the agreement on nonaggression between the north and the south and completely halt the inter-Korean cooperation." The two Koreas have forged several nonaggression pacts since the 1970s and the North's statement wasn't specific which agreement it meant.

North Korea also said it would ban South Korean ships and planes from its territorial waters and airspace, though that step means little since South Korean planes avoid the country and only ships involved in commerce with the North travel there.

The statement came several hours after North Korean accused South Korea of sending warships into its territorial waters, a claim the South immediately denied.

North Korea's state media said "dozens" of South Korea warships crossed the inter-Korean maritime border in the Yellow Sea over the past 10 days. The area, near where the South Korean patrol boat Cheonan sank on March 26, has long been disputed by North Korea.

The statement showed that Pyongyang is intensely focused on the Yellow Sea boundary as part of its broader effort to secure money and security for its authoritarian government. As part of that effort, North Korea for two years has been trying to get South Korea to reverse its stance of linking aid to the North with nuclear disarmament.

The maritime boundary is an area where North Korea can irritate the South Korean military and government without risk of involving many people and a wide conflict.

And it's a place where Pyongyang feels economically constrained. On portions of its west coast, North Korean fishing vessels can only go out about five miles before reaching the inter-Korean border, limiting their ability to fish.

In the announcement, North Korea warned of further, unspecified military action in the Yellow Sea. It didn't refer to the Cheonan sinking in the announcement.

Through the years, North Korean military vessels have accompanied fishing boats around the sea border. Last year, North Korea built a rocket base on land that's capable of firing artillery into the border waters. It test-fired several hundred rounds of artillery from the new base in January.

Earlier Tuesday, a defector group in Seoul said that North Korean officials told the country's citizens last week to prepare for confrontation with the South.

The order was given on a closed-circuit cable radio system that is maintained by the government and is difficult for outsiders to monitor, said Hyun In-hye of the defector group North Korea Intellectual Solidarity. He said the group is in regular phone contact with people in North Korea.

The North's authoritarian government has long told North Koreans that the country is at risk of invasion from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan. But last week's message said the South may use the Cheonan incident as a pretense for war, Ms. Hyun said.

South Korea last week formally accused the North of sinking the ship, killing 46 sailors, after a joint military-civilian panel presented the results of its investigation, including parts of a North Korean torpedo recovered from the scene.

On Monday, South Korea announced a series of penalties against the North, chiefly economic-related. South Korea on Tuesday began to implement one of the penalties with the launch of an FM radio station that will broadcast news and messages into the North, the first time the South has mounted such an effort since 2004.

The broadcast includes an hour-long news program from Korea Broadcasting System, a taxpayer-funded but independently-run TV and radio network, and a four-hour program updated daily called the "Voice of Freedom" that will include pop music and favorable descriptions of life in South Korea.

The South Korean military will begin blasting the broadcast through loudspeakers at the inter-Korean border known as the Demilitarized Zone, but officials said Tuesday it will take several weeks to set up the speakers along the 150-mile border. South Korea will also set up electronic billboards that will flash messages and videos at the border.

Of all the penalties announced on Monday, North Korea reacted most strongly to the resumption of the radio broadcasts and loudspeaker blasts. The North's media said its soldiers would be allowed to shoot at the loudspeakers.

South Korean defense officials said the speakers can be heard for 10 to 15 miles into North Korea on quiet nights.
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