An inter-Korean liaison office in North Korea was destroyed in an explosion in 2020. A court in Seoul has now ordered North Korea to pay approximately $32.5 million in compensation over the incident. A spokesperson for the Seoul Central District Court said Wednesday (September 16) that the court had ruled North Korea must pay the South Korean government 44.6 billion won in compensation.
Various media outlets have reported that this case, filed by the South Korean government over the destruction of the inter-Korean liaison office, is the first lawsuit seeking direct compensation from the North Korean state. The office had been built in an abandoned area of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, where South Korean companies once employed North Korean workers. It had been established with the aim of improving relations between the two neighbouring countries.
However, after tensions rose between the two countries over several days in June 2020, North Korea blew up and destroyed the office. Tensions had escalated further after some South Korean rights activists sent balloons carrying anti-North Korea leaflets across the border. Pyongyang had at the time described the office as “unnecessary.”
South Korea said it would review the necessary next steps following the court’s ruling. Experts, however, believe there is very little chance that Pyongyang will actually pay the compensation. The lawsuit was filed in 2023 under the government of then-president Yoon Suk-yeol, who took a hardline stance on North Korea and was later removed from power following a failed attempt to impose martial law.
The inter-Korean liaison office was opened in September 2018. A few days later, then-South Korean president Moon Jae-in travelled to Pyongyang to take part in a third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Over the following months, roughly 20 officials from each side worked at the office. Its operations were suspended in January 2020, however, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Three summits between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un in 2018 had led to significant improvement in inter-Korean relations. But after a summit between Kim and then-US president Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, broke down in February 2019, relations between the two Koreas began to deteriorate.