North Korea cuts off communications with US

Seoul // North Korea announced on Monday it will end a diplomatic communication channel with the United States and hinted at harsher punishment for Americans detained in the country in retaliation for US sanctions that target leader Kim Jong-un.

The US government last week imposed penalties on Mr Kim and 10 other top officials for alleged human rights abuses. North Korea is already sanctioned because of its nuclear weapons programme, but it was the first time that Mr Kim was personally sanctioned — a move Pyongyang said was tantamount to a war declaration.

On Monday, the North’s state media said it told the US it will terminate contact through a UN channel in New York that allowed diplomats to communicate.

It is a channel for North Korea’s UN diplomats to communicate with US diplomats and is needed because the countries do not have diplomatic ties.

Pyongyang also said it informed Washington that it will handle all issues between the two countries according to an unspecified wartime law, including Americans detained in North Korea, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

South Korean media have suggested the North might use the wartime law to hand out harsher punishments on Americans detained in the North.

Also on Monday, Pyongyang threatened to take “physical action” after Washington and Seoul announced they would deploy a sophisticated US anti-missile defence system to counter the growing menace from Pyongyang.

Seoul and Washington had on Friday revealed their decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in the South following recent North Korean missile and nuclear tests.

“The DPRK will take a physical counteraction to thoroughly control THAAD ... from the moment its location and place have been confirmed in South Korea,” the artillery bureau of the North’s military said, according to KCNA.

* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse