Blowing up liaison building was 'only the beginning,' North Korea says

The destruction of an inter-Korean liaison office earlier this week by North Korea was an opening salvo for more aggression against the South, a communist state-owned publication warned Thursday. 

“This is only the beginning,” reads a notice in Rodong Sinmun, the official news outlet for the government in Pyongyang. “The sound of explosion which will be continued in the future may go far beyond the imagination of those who interpret development of affairs as they please.”

North Korea on Tuesday blew up the building that was paid for by South Korea and was used as a site for the two countries’ representatives to communicate with one another. The building was in Kaesong, just north of the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone. 

The Pyongyang government telegraphed the move last week, when it announced it would stop talking to Seoul, citing anger over political leaflets, miniature radios, and dollar bills that were floated via balloon and water bottles across the border from South to North.

Also on Thursday, as North Korean troops reportedly were seen in the complex where the liaison office once stood, Pyongyang issued increasingly bellicose threats from party officials.

“Iron should be struck while it is hot,” read a statement attributed to Jon Mun Yong, a department director with the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea. “We must not confine ourselves to the explosion but pour rubbish on the habitat of the human scum in retaliation.”

The North’s Korean Peoples Army is on standby, according to a spokesman.

“We, ready for carrying out all military operation plans against the enemies, are waiting for an order of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea,” said Han Chang Il, who was described by the news outlet as “Officer of the KPA.”

As of mid-day Thursday, tensions were high but remained in check.

"We are closely monitoring North Korean military movements related to those (warnings),” said Col. Kim Jun-rak, spokesperson for the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to the South Korean-based Yonhap News Agency. “But any direct and visible acts have not been spotted."

South Korea held field maneuvers near the inter-Korean border on Thursday, featuring camouflaged K1E1 main battle tanks, the Yonhap agency reported.