North Korea’s parliament has voted to scrap all economic cooperation agreements with South Korea, the country’s state-run KCNA news agency reported. The decision comes in the wake of Kim Jong-un telling parliament last week that South Korea is a “primary foe and invariable principal enemy.”
The move will effectively put to an end normalisation efforts that begun in the 2000s which had seen economic projects take place.
One of them was the Mount Kumgang tourism project. Located in the special administrative region of North Korea, the tours to the scenic mountain just north of the eastern border were a symbol of economic cooperation and drew nearly 2 million South Korean visitors.
The move comes also comes at a major loss for Hyundai Asan, an affiliate of the Hyundai Group conglomerate. It invested more than $564 million in developing the Kumgang project. Though this project was halted in 2008, the North did not turn its back on economic cooperation with the South..
In a pre-recorded interview with state TV KBS aired late on Wednesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called the shift in North Korea’s policy “an extraordinary change”, but said it was hard to understand the thinking behind the move. Yoon, who has taken a hard line against Pyongyang, said he remains open to engaging the North and even holding a summit meeting with Kim. He however said the North Korean leadership is “not a rational group.”
Since assuming power in 2011, Kim Jong-un has directed North Korea’s efforts towards the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles despite a sagging economy and heightened tensions with South Korea and the United States.
