The Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) in North Korea has decided to end all agreements that encourage economic partnership, further severing ties between the two countries on February 8th.
The SPA Standing Committee released a decree called “Rescinding the North-South Economic Cooperation Law of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Kumgangsan International Tourism Zone Law and its implementing regulations” after the meeting.
South Korea’s Hyundai Group developed and funded the Mount Kumgangsan Tourism Project in the early 2000s as a sign of inter-Korean cooperation. South Korean authorities suspended tours to the area in 2008 after North Korean guards shot and killed a South Korean citizen who entered a restricted zone.
The decree did not mention the law regarding the Kaesong Industrial Zone, which was a joint economic project that began in 2002 between the Koreas.
Last year, the North also did away with a military pact designed to calm border tensions under the truce that ended the Korean War (1950–1953) and still maintains the South is an enemy at war.
