NORTH KOREA on Thursday nullified all agreements on economic cooperation and exchanges with South Korea, and said it would liquidate South Korean assets left behind in the Kaesong industrial zone and Mount Kumgang tourist zone in its territory.

    South Korea’s unification ministry said yesterday such unilateral claims by Pyongyang can never be accepted.

    A statement by a spokesman for North Korea’s Committee for Peaceful Reunification of Korea said the plan was made in response to a series of unilateral sanctions by Seoul on North Korea after the U.N. Security Council voted to adopt a tough resolution against Pyongyang.

    According to the statement, North Korea vows to take steps to “launch lethal political, military and economic strikes on the President Park Geun-hye administration” of South Korea.

    North Korea will immediately launch attacks “in pre-emptive manners” once the enemies take action, the military is only waiting for an order, the statement stressed.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said the current situation on the Korean Peninsula is complicated and sensitive, and called for restraint from all sides concerned.

    Mount Kumgang was the first major inter-Korean cooperation project. Thousands of South Koreans visited the resort between 1998 and 2008. Seoul ended the tours in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean tourist who wandered into a restricted zone.

    North Korea also fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea Thursday.

    The missiles flew about 500 kilometers off its east coast city of Wonsan and were likely from the Soviet-developed Scud series, South Korea’s defense ministry said.

    South Korea on Tuesday unveiled a package of new unilateral sanctions on North Korea over its latest nuclear test and rocket launch.

    (SD-Xinhua)