A court in Seoul has ordered North Korea to pay the South Korean government 44.6 billion won (approximately $32.5 million) in damages for the destruction of the Inter-Korean Liaison Office in 2020. The Seoul Central District Court ruled that the North should compensate the South for blowing up the building, a spokeswoman told AFP on Wednesday.

This lawsuit marks the first time the South Korean government has sought damages directly from the North Korean state, according to media reports. The case was filed in 2023 under the government of then-South Korean leader Yoon Suk-yeol, who took a hard line on North Korea before he was ousted following his disastrous martial law declaration.

The liaison office opened in September 2018, just days before then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in traveled to Pyongyang for his third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. About 20 officials from each side were stationed at the office in the following months until operations were suspended in January 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pyongyang blew up the building in June 2020 after days of rising tensions when activists in the South sent balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. The North denounced the office as "useless". South Korea said it would "review the necessary follow-up measures", though experts consider it unlikely that Pyongyang would ever pay damages over the demolition of the building in the North Korean city of Kaesong.

Inter-Korean relations reached a high point in 2018, when Moon and Kim held three summits. But ties deteriorated after a meeting between Kim and United States President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, collapsed in February 2019. The court ruling is part of South Korea's hardline approach toward the North, and it is expected to remain without practical response from Pyongyang.

Source: www.aljazeera.com