The North Korean parliament has decided to abolish its legislation on economic cooperation with its South Korean neighbor, the state press announced Thursday, against a backdrop of deterioration in relations between the two Koreas.
At a plenary meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly on Wednesday, representatives voted to abolish the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Law
"with unanimous approval
," KCNA, North Korea's state news agency, reported.
The move comes as the North Korean regime declared Seoul its main enemy last month, abolished agencies dedicated to reunification and threatened to occupy the South in the event of war.
Ties between the two Koreas have been frozen since Pyongyang accelerated its weapons programs and Seoul intensified its military cooperation with Washington and Tokyo.
The North Korean parliament also unanimously approved a plan to abolish a special law on the operation of the Mount Kumgang tourism project, which was once an important symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.
The resort was built by South Korean company Hyundai Asan on one of the North's most picturesque mountains and attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors from the South.
But the tours abruptly ended in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot dead a South tourist who strayed from an authorized path, and Seoul suspended the trips.
Financing provocations
The Mount Kumgang station was once one of the two largest inter-Korean projects, along with the now-shuttered Kaesong Industrial Complex, where companies from the South employed North Korean workers while paying Pyongyang for their services.
In 2016, Seoul withdrew from the project - launched following an inter-Korean summit in 2000 - in response to a nuclear test and missile launches by the North, believing that profits from Kaesong helped finance the provocations .
In 2020, the North blew up a Seoul-funded liaison office with the South on its side of the border, saying it was not interested in talks.
After years of closing its borders, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the North could benefit from the resumption of its tourist activity, a means of generating cash, which however could now violate international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang because of its nuclear and ballistic weapons programs.
As Pyongyang moves closer to Moscow, also targeted by a series of international sanctions over the war in Ukraine, the Seoul-based NK News website reported that Russian tourists are expected to travel to the North this month.