The site originally opened in 2018 as a means of maintaining dialogue between the two Koreas and brokering a formal end to the Korean War. However, the office has been empty since January due to Covid-19, with Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, previously calling the office “useless” and threatening to blow it up at the weekend. The reckoning came on Tuesday, as new footage from the scene shows.

The move comes amid renewed threats of military action by the North after stalled peace talks with both South Korea and the US. 

South Korea said the office’s destruction “abandons the hopes of everyone who wanted the development of inter-Korean relations and peace settlement in the Korean Peninsula.” The South added that it would “respond strongly” if its northern neighbor “continues to worsen the situation.”

“We call for restraint from all sides,” Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, said on Tuesday.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry released black-and-white surveillance footage on Tuesday which purported to show the building’s demise, with Thursday’s color video release by the North confirming the escalation of tensions.

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