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DPRK to close its border with S Korea from next month

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-12 14:10

PYONGYANG -- The military of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was authorized to cut off all land borders with South Korea from December, the official KCNA news said on Wednesday.

North Korea announced Wednesday it would close its border with South Korea from next month. [Agencies]

"Upon the authorization, we officially inform the south side that the actual crucial measure taken by the KPA (DPRK army) to strictly restrict and cut off all the overland passages through the Military Demarcation Line will take effect from December 1," said the KCNA.

The report quoted a military official as saying that the DPRK accused the South Korean authorities of failing to live up to the two joint declarations signed by the two countries' top leaders in 2000 and 2007 respectively. The confrontation kicked up by the South was "going beyond the danger level," he added.

The KCNA didn't clarify if the measure would affect day-to-day tourism to Kaesong city and the operation of the north-south cooperative industrial complex in Kaesong, which lies just north of the frontier.

Relations between the two countries technically still at war have frayed since February when conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office pledging to get tough with Pyongyang. The DPRK later responded by threatening to cut off all contacts.