S. Korea says it is monitoring full

Ground crew work near North Korea's national carrier, Air Koryo's commercial plane on the tarmac at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, Aug. 22. AP-Yonhap

South Korea's unification ministry said Wednesday it is monitoring when North Korea will reopen its border with China in a full-fledged manner, as it has partially opened it following a yearslong closure over COVID-19.

After more than three years of stringent COVID-19 restrictions, North Korea has recently permitted its athletes to cross the border to take part in a taekwondo tournament in Kazakhstan and resumed the operation of commercial flights with China.

"North Korea has opened its border in a limited manner while struggling to stabilize a food crisis," the ministry said in a report to the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and unification.

North Korea's trade with China has recovered to around 85 percent of pre-pandemic levels, but it remains at a standstill due to the slowing growth of exports based on manufacturing on commission, it said.

The ministry said the secretive regime is striving to recover from damage caused by floods and other national disasters, mobilizing all available resources to increase crop production this year.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un harshly berated Premier Kim Tok-hun over flood damage and hinted at his replacement, an apparent move to shift responsibility for the faltering economy to the Cabinet.

Meanwhile, North Korea has kicked off offensive military activities in protest of a combined military exercise between South Korea and the United States, according to the unification ministry.

The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, based on an all-out war scenario, began its 11-day run of various contingency drills Monday. The North has long denounced Seoul-Washington military drills as a rehearsal for an invasion.

The North seeks to launch a military spy satellite between Thursday and Aug. 31 following its failure in late May.

It also denounced Seoul, Washington and Tokyo for holding their trilateral summit at Camp David last week, saying that they adopted documents to "formulate nuclear war provocations" on the Korean Peninsula. (Yonhap)