N. Korea cuts power lines supplying electricity to shuttered Kaesong complex

By Lee Minji

SEOUL, Nov. 26 (Yonhap) — 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.

The North has yet to take down the now-defunct transmission towers, according to the officials.

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.

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 Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

Last month, the North blew up its part of the two roads after its military announced a plan to “completely separate” North Korea’s territory from the South.