Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday he does not want to see a further escalation in tensions between North and South Korea, after North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office in its border city of Kaesong.
"It's our hope that tensions in relations between the North and the South will not heighten further," Abe told reporters at his office.
"We will firmly coordinate with South Korea and the United States in analyzing intelligence and dealing with the situation," he said.
The blowing up of the joint liaison office, a four-story concrete building located in the Kaesong Industrial Zone, occurred at 2:49 p.m. on Tuesday, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry.
It followed an earlier warning by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister, Kim Yo Jong, that the office would be destroyed in retaliation for anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent by balloon across the border by defector groups.
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