'Hostile State': North Korea Makes Official Declaration on 'Brink of War'
North Korea has amended its constitution to define South Korea as a "hostile state," Pyongyang said Thursday.
The announcement, made in an English-language statement by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), follows Kim Jong Un 's January directive to revise the constitution and officially designate the South as North Korea's "primary foe."
It also comes only days after Seoul confirmed the North had destroyed road and rail links with the South, the latest in Kim's purge of symbols of eventual inter-Korean unification. At a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea last December, he called for the country to abandon this long-standing goal and for a fulfilment of his earlier call to sever railways to "an irretrievable level."
"This is an inevitable and legitimate measure taken in keeping with the requirement of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) constitution which clearly defines the ROK (Republic of Korea) as a hostile state," KCNA said of the destruction of road and rail links, using the official names for the North and South, respectively.
The move was the result of "serious security circumstances running to the unpredictable brink of war," the report added citing "grave political and military provocations of the hostile forces."
The statement was an apparent reference to South Korea's security alliance with the United States. Pyongyang has called the partners' multiple war games this summer "provocative" and a main driver of the country's United Nations-sanctioned nuclear weapons program.
Analysts pointed out the change was the first to emerge from last week's two-day session of the communist country's rubber-stamp parliament, the Supreme People's Assembly.
" North Korea finally reports actions taken to sever inter-Korean infrastructure and provides at least one clue as to what recent constitutional revisions entailed," wrote Jenny Town, director of Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Stimson Center's 38 North program on X (formerly Twitter ).
"What else was passed and what additional actions might be necessary before revealing details is still an open question," she stated.
Northern forces destroyed sections of road as well as rail track on the western Gyeongui line and east-coast Donghae line, both of which run through the heavily militarized border.
Sean King, senior vice president of New York-based consultancy Park Strategies, called the action "largely symbolic," pointing out the routes are no longer in use.
King told Newsweek a more interesting development was the North's pledge to replace the transportation links with fortifications, calling these "somewhat reassuring."
"If Kim Jong Un were thinking of invading South Korea anytime soon, why then would he be building barriers between the two sides, which only makes it harder to move troops across the border?" King said.
