North Korea Rejected South's Offer and Promised to Return Troops to Border

Pyongyang intends to annul the border demilitarization agreement concluded with Seoul in 2018 North Korean authorities said Wednesday that Pyongyang had rejected Seoul’s offer to send special envoys for negotiations. The DPRK promised to send troops back to the demilitarized border zone and that will be the last step on the road to canceling inter-Korean peace agreements. The Central Telegraph Agency of Korea (CTAK) reported this the day after the North Korean authorities blew up the inter-Korean communications office in the border city of Kaesong, which essentially served as the embassy of South Korea. The office in Queson was established as part of the 2018 agreement reached by the leaders of the two neighboring countries. This office explosion reason was propaganda leaflets sent by North Korean defectors to their former homeland. South Korean President Moon Jae-in proposed on Monday to send his national security adviser and intelligence director as special envoys to North Korea. However, Kim Yo Jeong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, “categorically rejected this tactless and base proposition,” the CTC said in a statement. Moon "sends special envoys to overcome crises and often makes ridiculous suggestions but he must clearly understand that this trick will no longer work," the statement said. "The resolution of the current crisis in relations between the North and the South, caused by the incompetence and irresponsibility of the South Korean authorities is impossible and can only be stopped after paying the proper price," the authors add. In a separate message, the representative of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) stated that he was mobilizing to send troops. to Mount Kyumgan and the border town of Kaesong where the two Koreas in the past carried out joint economic projects. The DPRK will again place police posts that have been withdrawn from the demilitarized zone (DMZ). In addition, artillery units near the western maritime border, where defectors often send leaflets, will be strengthened to the level of "top-level military operations," the report said. On Tuesday, KPA representatives said they were studying an “action plan” to return to areas that were demilitarized in accordance with the 2018 Inter-Korean Military Pact. Now KPA is going to "turn the front line into a fortress." The South Korean Ministry of Defense called on Pyongyang to comply with the agreement, according to which both sides promised to stop "all hostile actions" and dismantle a number of military facilities along the DMZ.