Seoul court orders North Korea to pay $32.5m for blowing up office

Pyongyang blew up the Inter-Korean Liaison Office building in June 2020 after days of rising tensions.

A view of an explosion of a joint liaison office with South Korea in the North Korean border town of Kaesong in this picture supplied by the Korean Central News Agency on June 16, 2020 [KCNA via Reuters]

A court in Seoul has ordered Pyongyang to pay roughly $32.5m for blowing up an office in North Korea in 2020 that was intended to foster better relations between the two neighbours.

“The court has ruled the North should pay the South Korean government 44.6 billion won in damages,” a spokeswoman for the Seoul Central District Court told the AFP news agency on Wednesday.

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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.

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

However, 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”.

South Korea said it would “review the necessary follow-up measures”, though experts consider it unlikely that Pyongyang would ever pay damages over the demolition of the building in the North Korean city of Kaesong.

The case was filed in 2023 under the government of then-South Korean leader Yoon Suk-yeol, who took a hard line 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.

About 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 United States President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, collapsed in February 2019.

2020年6月，在紧张局势持续数日后，平壤炸毁了朝韩联络办公室大楼。

这张照片由朝鲜中央通讯社于2020年6月16日提供，照片显示的是位于朝鲜边境城市开城的朝韩联络办公室发生爆炸的场景。[朝中社通过路透社发布]

首尔一家法院下令平壤支付约 3250 万美元，原因是朝鲜在 2020 年炸毁了位于朝鲜境内的一个旨在促进朝韩两国关系的办公室。

首尔中央地方法院一位女发言人周三告诉法新社：“法院裁定朝鲜应向韩国政府支付 446 亿韩元的赔偿金。”

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据媒体报道，此次针对朝韩联络办公室被毁事件提起的诉讼，标志着韩国政府首次直接向朝鲜政府寻求赔偿。

该办公大楼建于已废弃的开城工业园区内，韩国企业曾在这里雇用朝鲜工人。

然而，在韩国活动人士向朝鲜境内散发反平壤传单的气球，导致紧张局势持续数日后，平壤于 2020 年 6 月炸毁了这座建筑，而朝鲜则谴责该办公室“毫无用处”。

韩国表示将“审查必要的后续措施”，但专家认为，平壤不太可能就朝鲜开城建筑物的拆除事件支付赔偿金。

该案于 2023 年提起，当时的韩国领导人是尹锡悦，他在灾难性的戒严令颁布后被推翻，此前他一直对朝鲜采取强硬立场。

该办事处于 2018 年 9 月开业，就在时任韩国总统文在寅前往平壤与朝鲜领导人金正恩举行第三次峰会的前几天。

在接下来的几个月里，双方各有约 20 名官员驻扎在该办公室，直到 2020 年 1 月因 COVID-19 疫情而暂停运作。

2018年，韩朝关系达到顶峰，文在寅和金正恩举行了三次峰会。但2019年2月，金正恩与美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在越南河内举行的会晤破裂后，两国关系开始恶化。