Another Korean War Brewing?

By EVAN RAMSTAD

• WSJ MAY 25, 2010, 5:15 P.M. ET

 

SEOUL—North Korea said it will "totally freeze" its relations with South Korea and pull out of a nonaggression pact between the two countries, heightening tensions and widening the rift between the Koreas to its greatest point in two decades.

In its announcement, made late Tuesday local time, the North pulled further back from inter-Korean cooperation than the South had a day earlier when it penalized Pyongyang for allegedly torpedoing and sinking a South Korean warship.

North Korea pulls further back from inter-Korean cooperation than South Korea had a day earlier when it penalized Pyongyang for allegedly torpedoing and sinking a South Korean warship. WSJ's John Bussey joins the News Hub to discuss the U.S. endgame for North Korea.

The statement said the North "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 nonaggression between the north and the south and completely halt the inter-Korean cooperation."

The two Koreas have forged several nonaggression pacts since the 1970s; the North's statement didn't specify which agreement it meant.

The decision appears to break a pattern that has characterized North Korea's interaction with the outside world for about 20 years, in which Pyongyang creates a crisis, then seeks monetary and security concessions for ending it. It essentially sets inter-Korean relations back to where they were in the early 1990s.