North Korea dismantles South Korean building near shuttered Kaesong complex

Seoul, May 2: North Korea appears to have taken down a building located near the now-shuttered inter-Korean factory park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, the unification ministry said Thursday.

The dismantled building had been built outside the factory park by a South Korean company for investment purposes, a ministry official told reporters, without providing further details, Yonhap news agency reported.

The official said the building had never been in use even when the Kaesong Industrial Complex was normally running before South Korea suspended its operation in February 2016 in response to the North's nuclear and long-range missile tests.

Earlier this week, the Voice of America, a Washington-based news outlet, reported that the building located some 50 meters from the factory park entrance had been dismantled, citing satellite imagery.

Once a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, the Kaesong complex was home to more than 120 small South Korean plants that produced garments and other labor-intensive goods by employing more than 54,300 North Korean workers.

Amid frosty inter-Korean relations, North Korea blew up the joint liaison office in the Kaesong complex in June 2020 in anger over Seoul's failure to stop North Korean defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.