Agencies
Seoul
South Korea has raised its terror warning levels by two levels from “caution” to “alert” at five foreign missions due to increased risk of attacks on them by North Korea, the Seoul government said on Thursday.
The “alert” level is the third highest of the four-level system and means that “the possibility of a terrorist attack” is classified as high, the government said.
The move is in response to intelligence indications that showed that North Korea could attempt to cause damage to South Korean embassies in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam as well as the to consulates general in Vladivostok in Russia and in the north-eastern Chinese city of Shenyang. No details were given.
There has been radio silence between the two Korean states for some time due to increasing tensions.
At a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party at the end of 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un described inter-Korean relations as being between two warring states. He also called for South Korea to be designated as the main enemy in the country’s socialist constitution.
Under international law, the Korean peninsula is still in a state of war, as no peace treaty was signed at the end of the Korean War in 1953,
despite intermittent rapprochements.
