Court orders North Korea pay Seoul US$32.5 million for blowing up office

SEOUL: A Seoul court ordered Pyongyang on Wednesday (Sep 16) to pay roughly US$32.5 million for blowing up in 2020 an office in North Korea that was intended to foster better relations between the two Koreas.

The lawsuit over the destruction of the Inter-Korean Liaison Office marks the first time the South Korean government has sought damages directly from the North Korean state, media reports said.

Experts consider it unlikely Pyongyang would ever pay damages over the demolition of the building in the North Korean city of Kaesong, and the South said it would "review the necessary follow-up measures".

The office building was constructed in the dormant Kaesong Industrial Complex, where South Korean companies once employed North Korean workers.

But Pyongyang blew up the building in June 2020 after days of rising tensions when activists in the South sent balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, with the North denouncing the office as "useless".

"The court has ruled the North should pay the South Korean government 44.6 billion won in damages," a spokeswoman of the Seoul Central District Court told AFP.

The case was filed in 2023 under the government of then South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol, which took a hardline on North Korea before he was ousted following his disastrous martial law declaration.

The office opened in September 2018, days before then South Korean president Moon Jae-in travelled to Pyongyang for his third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Around 20 officials from each side were stationed at the office in the following months until operations were suspended in January 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inter-Korean relations reached a high point in 2018, when Moon and Kim held three summits. But ties deteriorated after a meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Hanoi collapsed in February 2019.

"It is simply impossible for the North to accept the responsibility and pay the damages," Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP.

"The North's position on the demolition is clear: it maintains that the move was justified and was taken in response to faults by the South," he added.

Whether the North responds to the ruling will depend on whether, and how, the South Korean government reacts publicly, he said.

South Korea's Unification Ministry said "the government hopes that inter-Korean dialogue will resume and that all issues between the two Koreas can be resolved through dialogue and cooperation".