North Korea Fuels Region’s Tensions by Quitting Armistice

North Korea said it will scrap the 1953 armistice, cut a cross-border hotline to South Korea and display its nuclear status, bringing tensions on the peninsula to the highest level in three years.

The actions yesterday, along with rhetoric that followed a United Nations Security Council vote to impose more sanctions on North Korea, came as more than 10,000 U.S. troops joined South Korea’s military in annual maneuvers. North Korea will “reinforce as a nuclear weapons state” in response to the vote, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency today.