North Korea said Tuesday it was severing all ties with the South and threatened its wealthy neig-hbour with military action if it continued to violate its waters off the west coast.
The comments mark a new high in tensions on the divided peninsula after the March sinking of a South Korean warship, which Seoul blames on a torpedo fired by the North.
The increasingly warlike rhetoric earlier hit Seoul’s financial markets, prompting policymakers to call an emergency meeting Wednesday to look for ways to calm investors.
“The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea ... formally declares that from now on it will put into force the resolute measures to totally freeze the inter-Korean relations, totally abrogate the agreement on non-aggression between the north and the south and completely halt the inter-Korean cooperation,” the North’s KCNA news agency reported.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday cut trade with the North and blocked its ships from the South’s waters. He plans to take the issue to the UN Security Council. —Reuters