The truce village that straddles North and South Korea has become the site of a tourism tussle as U.S.-commanded forces and North Korea accused each other on Wednesday of locking out visitors to a historic room.
Each said the other had locked out tourists from the other side who wanted to visit the hut that houses the conference room used to hammer out the truce that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The building stands on the Military Demarcation Line, the border between North and South Korea, and for years has been visited by tourist groups from the North and South wanting to see the Cold War’s last frontier.
Typically, when a group from South Korea enters the building, a military guard locks the door at the northern end of the hut from the inside. When a group enters from the North, the southern door is locked.
But the United Nations Command, which is headed by a U.S. general, said in a statement North Korea left the door to the south side of the Military Armistice Commission conference room locked for several hours on September 30, preventing tourists from the South from entering.
In response, the United Nations secured the building and locked the door on the North. It unlocked that door on November 8.
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