Korea ordered troops on the border to prepare to fire. Seoul claims that the

North is preparing to blow up roads that cross the heavily militarized border with the South. Tensions are escalating after North Korea accused its rival of flying drones over its airspace to drop propaganda leaflets. South Korean officials have neither confirmed nor denied being behind that incident.

Scenes like this of families from North and South Korea crossing the border to be reunited after years apart, a gesture of diplomatic goodwill, will now be a thing of the past.

These recent images show North Korean soldiers on the border, peeling away railway lines and building barriers. Permanently closing the border to the South.

A statement appeared on the North Korean army's website on October 9th, announcing an immediate plan to cut off transit lines connecting to neighboring South Korea.

Two days prior, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un told a crowd at his namesake university that he is prepared to use all military capabilities in a potential conflict with South Korea and the United States. And he is not ruling out the use of nuclear weapons.

Such language is not unusual, but it comes at a time when tensions with South Korea are close to boiling point, making such a threat all the more credible.

After several years of relative stability between the Koreas, Seoul has recently upset

Pyongyang by deepening its military ties with the US, North Korea's sworn enemy.

This includes a beefing up of joint nuclear and military planning, very publicly demonstrated by this year's annual joint military exercises with the US army on South Korean soil.

It's important because we're here in the Korean peninsula. It's important that we know how to work with our ROK counterparts. If something ever serious happened, that we can work well together.

Further perceived goading by South Korea is its inclusion of a US supersonic bomber plane in a recent military parade, during which President Yoon Seok-yool sent a strong message across the border.

If North Korea attempts to use nuclear weapons, it will face a resolute, overwhelming response from our military and the US alliance. That day will see the end of the North Korean regime.

Relations have soured between North and South Korea since Yoon took office in 2022, ending years of outreach from the previous government that saw families able to cross the border.

Kim Jong-un let his feelings be known in May and June this year, by sending hundreds of giant balloons filled with trash and faeces through the sky into South Korea.

But puerile provocations have now escalated into a far more dangerous threat of nuclear warfare.

Kim Jong-un has been flexing his increasing nuclear capabilities in recent months. Some analysts say this is an attempt ahead of the US election to finally force Washington to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power. But these barbed threats risk pushing tensions on the Korean peninsula to the brink.

Dr Catherine Jones is an East Asia specialist at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and joins us now. Welcome to DW. Great to have you on the program. Could I start by asking you to give us some background? Just remind us what is behind this current increase in tensions between North and South Korea?

Thank you very much for having me, Anja. So I think there's a number of factors that bring together this particular series of events. And it's really important to remember that

October is an important month in North Korea. It's the 10th of October is commonly celebrated as the foundation of the central organizing committee in North Korea. And therefore, it's common to have some discussion of an October surprise coming from the North. But alongside that, as your reports just outlined, there are a number of different factors that lead into intensifying some of the hostilities this year in particular. And I think it's important to factor in the general trends in the geopolitics around this situation.

So the relationship not just between South Korea and the United States, but also the relationship between North Korea and Russia. Previously this year, we've also had the non continuation of the panel of experts on sanctions against North Korea, 17, 18. So we've got a number of factors that bleed in and cause a sort of confluence of events around hostilities at this particular time of year. And I would add on top of that, October is a time where we've got perhaps more understanding of the human situation in North Korea, because we can see some of the data from the United States, particularly around crops and harvests, and what it's looking like in terms of food security for the year going forward.

I'm just going to jump in there because there are obviously many factors playing into this.

But we have seen several years of relative stability, haven't we? So give us a sense of how stark, how serious this escalation is.

So North Korea is a serious security concern, and it's multifaceted in those problems that it presents. But I would caution against overemphasizing the uniqueness of this particular set of threats and provocations. There could be things that are different this year. But what we've also seen is a continuation of continuing investment from North Korea in different types of weapon systems, particularly around capabilities of short-range missiles. We've seen continued testing of ballistic missile launchers. So we do have additional concerns right now, partly because of the geopolitics, partly because of the increased rhetoric from North and South

Korea at this particular time. And North Korea is a serious security concern. But I would caution against overemphasizing some of those things, because one thing that's important is to make sure that there are opportunities for responding. And certainly the diplomatic toolkit that's available right now may be very different from the diplomatic toolkit that we could have engaged two, three, four years ago.

Dr. Catherine Jones from the University of St. Andrews. I'm afraid we've run out of time, but thank you so much for your analysis.

Thank you.

Let's get more on this now with Hazel Smith. She's a professor of Korean studies at the

University of London. Thanks for being with us. Professor, what's behind this latest flare-up of tensions between North and South Korea? Why is it happening now?

Well, in fact, we've seen these tensions remain high between South and North Korea for the last two or three years. There's been continuous military exercises in the South between South

Korea, Japan, and the United States. There's been a recalibrated relationship with South Korea and

Japan, who have not had historically very good relationships at all. And on the northern side, with North Korea, you've seen after COVID, because the country was basically closed down, its only COVID remediation was to close the borders, and that happened for about two years.

Once it reopened, it's tried to reinvigorate trade with China. And although China is its main trading partner, trade is still very low. And it's turned towards Russia, where it looks like it's been swapping its stores of artillery shells, particularly some missiles, but mainly artillery shells, which has been developing since the end of the Korean War in 1953, and selling them to Russia in exchange for fuel and food. And that, of course, given Russia-Ukraine relations are at war in the West, more or less supports Ukraine, has exacerbated tensions all the way around. So this recent outburst of drones being sent in the South Korean military apparently sent drones over Pyongyang yesterday. North Korea, as your intro said, has been sending disgusting, rubbish-filled balloons into South Korea. These are not just irritations, but they're signs of the underlying tensions which haven't gone away for the last few years. North Korea's leader said he doesn't rule out using nuclear weapons in a conflict with South Korea and the U.S. What do you make of that statement?

Well, all states have nuclear weapons, although they're mainly a deterrent facility. The reason they're a deterrent facility is that states have the underlying ability to use them.

It's what Kim Jong-un is saying, what the leadership is saying, it's not just Kim Jong-un, but the people around him, is basically that they consider that they're in a state of preparation for war. The question is whether they would use them in war is another issue altogether.

In the past, what they've been preparing for is an artillery-based war, much as we see in Ukraine and Russia, and that's why they've been, even though they're a very poor country, been concentrating on an armaments production over the last 50, 60 years. All the calculations that one takes into account when the threat of nuclear weapons may be potentially used apply in North

Korea. If they were to use nuclear weapons, especially because South Korea is literally divided from North Korea by a line on the ground, then this would have just as bad an impact, even from their own weapons, on North Koreans as on South Korea. So nobody can predict, but it's not an imminent, we hope anyway, even in North Korea's planning, that this would be seen as something that nuclear weapons would be a usable threat from them.

Just in terms of risk assessment, how dangerous is all of this for the region?

There hasn't been a resolution to the Korean War, which ended in 1953. It ended with an armistice. This is often used as a cliche, but it's true. It ended with an armistice. There was never a peace agreement made between North and South Korea. There have been tensions between the two countries well before the development of the nuclear program in the 1990s, and those tensions have also had international ramifications. The United Nations, since 2006, has had sanctions, which have expanded since 2016, 2017, to cover the civilian economy on North Korea, and North Korea sees this as part and parcel of what it considers an existential threat, not necessarily to the existence of the government.

Thank you very much, Professor. That was Professor Hazel Smith from the University of London.

Thank you.