North Korea cuts power lines installed by South Korea

Seoul (The Uttam Hindu): North Korea has cut power lines installed by South Korea to supply electricity to a now-shuttered joint industrial park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, South Korea's military said, the latest in Pyongyang's move to sever inter-Korean ties. The military has detected North Korean soldiers removing part of the power lines connecting transmission towers built along the Gyeongui road since Sunday, officials said, in what appeared to be preparations to demolish the transmission towers built by the South, Yonhap news agency reported.

"The North has yet to work on the transmission towers, (North Korean soldiers) have piled up the severed high-voltage lines that fell on the ground," Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Col. Lee Sung-jun told a regular press briefing. Lee said North Korean troops have cut power lines connected to the first transmission tower located north of the military demarcation line, adding that further monitoring is needed.

South Korea built 48 transmission towers -- including 15 located in the North -- to supply electricity to the now-shuttered Kaesong Industrial Complex. But power supply has been halted since June 2020, when the North blew up an inter-Korean liaison office at the complex after lashing out at Seoul for failing to stop North Korean defectors in South Korea from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

Asked whether the resource-strapped North Korea severed the power lines to recycle them, Lee did not rule out such a possibility, noting that power lines contain a large amount of copper. The latest move came as North Korea has been ramping up inter-Korean tensions and wiping out traces of unification after its leader Kim Jong-un defined the Koreas as "two hostile states" late last year.

The North has since removed street lamps and installed mines along its side of the Gyeongui and Donghae roads, as well as deployed troops to build apparent anti-tank barriers and reinforce barbed wire within its side of the Demilitarised Zone separating the two Koreas. Last month, the North blew up part of the two roads after its military announced a plan to "completely separate" North Korea's territory from the South.