AFP, Seoul :
South Korea’s Unification Minister, its point man for relations with the North, stepped down on Friday over heightened tensions on the peninsula, days after Pyongyang blew up its liaison office with the South.
President Moon Jae-in “accepted Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul’s offer to resign”, the presidential Blue House said in a statement, after warning it will “no longer tolerate” the North’s unreasonable behaviour in an unusually stern criticism earlier this week.
Kim had offered to leave on Wednesday, a day after the North demolished the liaison office, saying he “takes responsibility” for the worsening of inter-Korean relations.
The North’s official KCNA news agency again blamed the South for the rising tensions on Friday, calling Seoul’s condemnation of its blowing up of the office “a guilty party filing the suit first”.
“All measures taken by us are punishments” that the South “deserves for their crimes”, KCNA said in the commentary.
