North Korea blew up the inter-Korean connection between the Gyeongui Line and the East Sea Line...Tensions on the Korean Peninsula rise

■ Host: Kim Sun-young Anchor
■ Starring: Kim Yeol-soo, Director of Security Strategy at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN NewsNOW] when quoting.

[Anchor]
North Korea blew up the Gyeongui and East Sea lines inter-Korean connections, the Joint Chiefs of Staff says. In response, there was even a breaking news that our country also fired back. Related information, Kim Yeol-soo, head of the Security Strategy Division at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs, is connected by phone. Hello, manager. We blew it up today. It's one of the measures to completely cut off inter-Korean relations, so you can see it like this.

[Kim Yeolsoo]
That's right. On the 9th, North Korea's Ministry of Defense sent a full text to our United Nations Command. So at that time, I sent a text saying I would take measures to fortify it. As you know, since yesterday, various equipment for detonating this road on the Gyeongui Line and the Donghae Line have been added to it, and the images of the piles of dirt have been revealed. So I expected that it would be detonated like this yesterday or today, but it was detonated today, so you can see it like this.

[Anchor]
There are many types of disconnection, closure, and various types of methods, so what is the meaning of choosing the format of bombing like this?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
Look at it like this. I think there are four meanings to bombing it like this. First, I think it shows the international community that inter-Korean relations are now completely two countries through this bombing show. The international community has never recognized it as two countries, just saying South Korea, North Korea, and understanding it as a Korean people. So I would have liked to show the international community that we are definitely two countries through this blast. I think the second is meaningful for Korea. In fact, since December of last year, North Korea has taken a number of tangible measures to break with South Korea.

We set up landmines, we set up barriers, we pulled out the railways here, we picked up the sleeper, and so on. But I see it as a decisive measure to show that inter-Korean relations have been completely cut off by blowing up roads like this. Third, I think there is a message to North Koreans. Never make Korea an object of hope in the future. And I think he gave me a message saying, "Don't make South Korea the target of defection." The fourth is the dissatisfaction with the Supreme People's Assembly.

I think those things are included. The constitution was revised through the Supreme People's Assembly on the 7th and 8th, but it did not go as far as this constitution, which Kim Jong-un claimed in his speech to the Supreme People's Assembly on January 15th, to establish a new territorial provision and lift a unification provision. So, I think that the four elements of dissatisfaction with this work in combination to make this explosion.

[Anchor]
There's a breaking news right now, so I'll tell you about this as well. This is what the Joint Chiefs of Staff revealed. Breaking news has been reported that the South Korean military fired back south of the Military Demarcation Line after North Korea blew up the inter-Korean road. At around 12 o'clock, the North Korean military blew up the Gyeongui Line and the East Sea Line to block the connection road. Currently, additional information has been received that additional work is underway by putting in heavy equipment. There was no damage to our military due to this. Breaking news has been heard that the South Korean military has fired back in areas south of the military demarcation line. Director Kim Yeol-soo, it is said that the Joint Chiefs of Staff has fired back, what do you think of the countermeasures against this bombing?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
I'm also a little cautious because I'm conducting a phone interview without seeing the details. But if North Korea did this blasting, for example, at the Military Demarcation Line, this would be quite a problem. The reason is that the Military Demarcation Line is the Demilitarized Zone 2km north and 2km south of the Military Demarcation Line.

You can't do anything about this as you want. The work was done north of the Military Demarcation Line, so the barbed wire at that point 2km north. It's okay to build a new landmine zone at that time, but doing this inside the Demilitarized Zone is a violation of the Armistice Agreement. Therefore, it seems that our Joint Chiefs of Staff also has such a purpose to warn and warn North Korea by firing such a shot south of the Military Demarcation Line.

[Anchor]
We can't know exactly because we haven't seen the bombing situation on video, but if you look at the location, it's a violation of the Armistice Agreement, right?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
That's right. So the Ministry of National Defense has to announce the exact location. If you look at the location accurately, it seems to me that this kind of work is not done 2km north of the Military Demarcation Line, but rather just above the Military Demarcation Line or on the Military Demarcation Line. This needs to be checked, but if work is done here, the military will have to be very alert about this.

In my view, the fact that the Joint Chiefs of Staff fired south of the Military Demarcation Line does not mean that North Korea was working 2km north of the Military Demarcation Line, but that it was working on the Military Demarcation Line. That's why it seems that we also shot south of the Military Demarcation Line as a warning.

[Anchor]
The Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that they are also strengthening their vigilance. The inter-Korean connection road was blown up today. When it comes to the inter-Korean connection road, is that the road that was mainly used by company officials living in the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the past?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
That's right. The Gyeongui Line is a national road that departs from Seoul, passes through Paju, and passes through Kaesong to Sinuiju. And isn't there a railway? We usually refer to it as the Gyeongui Line. There is a meaning of the railroad and a meaning of the national road. To be precise, let's say it's National Route 1. But what North Korea has done now seems to have blew up the road near the Military Demarcation Line on Route 1.

[Anchor]
So, apart from the actual function of the road, in a way, a symbol of inter-Korean exchanges for a long time was exploded today, right?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
That's right. You're showing that you're going to completely cut off inter-Korean relations. We're going to bomb it like this in the past, like we blew it up at the Kaesong Industrial Complex liaison office, and we're going to advertise it on a large scale. We are doing this show to promote to the international community and to promote to the North Koreans to achieve the four goals I mentioned earlier.

[Anchor]
Then, the plan to blow up the road connecting the two Koreas was mentioned at a plenary session of the Labor Party's Central Committee at the end of last year, and this is the scenario planned since then. Can we see it like this?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
I think it started from there. It's already started, but it's become more concrete as time goes by. So at first, through a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Labor Party, we started by just installing landmines in the landmine zone of the East Sea Line, but in a very small area. Starting with that, in the spring, landmine zones and barriers were installed. And then you take out all the railroad tracks of the Gyeongui and Donghae lines, and you take out the sleeper there and you take out the streetlights. And I even blew it up.

The meaning of this may have been planned by North Korea from the beginning, but as time goes by, didn't you do this to make these things more concrete and show them visually? The foundation is based on two hostile state theories.

[Anchor]
North Korea has recently declared that it will work on fortification and that it will cut roads and railways.I also mentioned this. And we've said that we're going to build defensive structures, so how can we see that the border area will change in the future?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
So we have to pay close attention to this part. I told you a while ago.It doesn't matter whether North Korea itself builds barbed-wire fences, mines, buildings, or barriers 2 kilometers north of the Military Demarcation Line. But if you do this on the Military Demarcation Line, it will be completely your land up to 2km north of the Military Demarcation Line. And from the Military Demarcation Line to the 2km south, it becomes strange here.

That's why this is a violation of the Armistice Agreement, and we have to constantly raise questions about this and make efforts to prevent North Korea from installing any buildings on the military demarcation line. Otherwise, the Military Demarcation Line could become the border line for North Korea. The military and the government should look into this issue with extraordinary interest.

[Anchor]
I'm pointing out North Korea's trend with Director Kim Yeol-soo. Manager, please wait a moment. This time, we will connect with a reporter and hear what the current situation is. Reporter Kim Moon-kyung, North Korea eventually blew up the inter-Korean road. Have you heard anything about it?

[Reporter]
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea blew up a road connecting the Gyeongui Line and the East Sea Line at around 12 p.m. today. At the same time, he said he is currently working on additional work by putting in heavy equipment. The South Korean military said it fired back at the area south of the Military Demarcation Line in response to the bombing, although there was no damage. At the same time, it has not yet revealed any specific news related to this, such as the bombing section. Earlier today, the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned at a briefing that they will take corresponding measures if the bombing damages us.

South Korea's CCTV also reportedly caught North Korea blasting the road. North Korea previously announced the complete disconnection of the two Koreas on the 9th and announced that it would fortify them, and put the road blast into action less than a week later. The South Korean military has warned that it will strongly punish North Korea for self-defense if it makes provocations, believing that it is preparing for additional provocations as well as demonstrative explosions. North Korea has also issued a number of guidelines, including monitoring alert against North Korea and strengthening firepower standby posture, even though it has ordered artillery units in front of it to prepare for fire, claiming the infiltration of drones. The South Korean military said the road that North Korea blew up today was not a railroad, but a land route. I'm Kim Moon-kyung of YTN from the Ministry of National Defense.

[Anchor]
I connected reporter Kim Moon-kyung to find out the current situation. Director Kim Yeolsoo is here, right? You explained earlier that it is part of North Korea's current fortification work. Then I'm curious about this. What can Chairman Kim Jong-un gain from this fortification?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
Like that. What North Korea is most interested in now is that the biggest problem is the violation of the regime. There has been so much Korean Wave spreading in the so-called North Korean region that North Korea itself has enacted various laws over the past few years. The revision of the laws first enacted the Reaction Thought Culture Rebellion Act, then the Youth Culture Guarantee Act, and finally the Pyongyang Culture Language Protection Act.

Through these things, we have controlled North Koreans, but nevertheless, we have not stopped the Korean Wave from expanding like this. In fact, from the perspective of North Korea, the GDP is 60 times different from that of South Korea, and the Korean Wave spreads in such a situation, so we have no choice but to worry that the system will collapse if we do something wrong. Then, what is the way for North Korea to live? In the end, they antagonize South Korea and prevent South Korea from becoming an object of admiration, educate North Koreans on ideas, and completely cut ties with South Korea. I will not only cut it off as a window of conversation, but also cut off all physical things. That's how they think they can live. That's why I'm taking these steps. In my view, I think this could be a trigger for the North Korean regime to further collapse.

[Anchor]
So, because internal anxiety has increased, they are building high externality, so you can analyze it like this, right?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
That's right. When you fortify it, have you ever closed and fortified any country to make it survive? In the end, it could be a more trigger for the collapse of the North Korean system. I think that the only way for North Korea to live is to open its doors, reform and open its doors, and promote the human rights of North Koreans, so that North Korea can live.

[Anchor]
You mentioned earlier that Chairman Kim Jong-un, who is emphasizing the hostile two countries, wanted to revise the constitution. How should we look at what has not been achieved at this Supreme People's Assembly?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
It's a territorial clause problem and a unification clause problem is not easy. In the case of the issue of the unification clause, virtually all the achievements of the previous generation must be denied. However, the first thing to do is to say that it would not have been easy to persuade North Koreans because they had to suddenly come up with a provision for peaceful unification after they had sung that much about peaceful unification to North Koreans since 1945.

Let's listen to the territorial provisions. The territorial provisions are as follows in Article 3 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. The Republic of Korea shall be the Korean Peninsula and its annexed islands. So how on earth does North Korea make territorial provisions from the standpoint of two countries? You must have had a lot of worries about this. So whether the military demarcation line, which I mentioned earlier, should be used as the border of the territorial provisions, or if there is an international legal basis for denying the NLL when North Korea itself denies the maritime boundary line, these things have not been agreed upon. However, Kim Jong-un has no choice but to have complaints about this.

So because of this complaint, he had to go to the Supreme People's Assembly and deliver a speech, but he just went to Kim Jong-un's National Defense Staff College and poured out what he wanted to say. So, I think that these things may be deferred.

[Anchor]
Anyway, the inter-Korean connection road that was blown up today can be seen as a legacy of its predecessor. How will North Korea view the bombing of this connection road?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
Well, from North Korea's point of view, this is how it looks. North Koreans will follow what they are taught, but they have continued to take a number of tangible measures since the end of last year as part of moving toward the two-state theory based on the hostile two-state theory. It's one of the things that you've been taking. The other one is going to be like this. It's too late to go to Korea now. Now, I feel a little frustrated because I think that there is a possibility that North Koreans might think that there is no other way if they are loyal to the system here.

[Anchor]
In any case, the North and South roads have been bombed as part of the fence and fortification work, and if you look at this series of trends in inter-Korean relations, you think North Korea is speeding up quite a bit, so there are concerns that there will be additional provocations. How do you see it?

[Kim Yeolsoo]
There's always the possibility of further provocation. There is a possibility of local provocation and a possibility of strategic provocation. The possibility of local provocation can be like this. Since they claim that our drones appeared in North Korea, that is, over Pyongyang, there is a possibility of additional provocation by sending drones to South Korea in response to this. Then, since the NLL must be inactivated, there may be such additional provocations against the NLL inactivation. Third, we continue to build structures on the military demarcation line. The structures of the Military Demarcation Line can be further constructed and further expanded.

If this is local provocation in our relationship with Korea, strategic provocations can be like this. If any violations of the U.N. Security Council resolution are called strategic provocations, perhaps North Korea's launch of a spy satellite, or its 12-axis, 24-wheeler test-fire from an ICBM launch pad unveiled last September, or its normal angle launch, or its submarine-launched ballistic missiles, Polaris-4 and 5. So I think that these local provocations and strategic provocations can continue.

[Anchor]
Let me repeat the breaking news that North Korea eventually blew up the inter-Korean road today and fired back south of the Military Demarcation Line at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So far, we have reviewed the contents related to Kim Yeol-soo, head of the Security Strategy Office at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs. Thank you for talking today.