London, Nov 12 : North Korea has said that it will shut all land borders with South Korea from the beginning of December, and accused its neighbour of provocation “beyond the danger level.”

The state-run Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang released a statement in English, which said the North Korean military was taking measures to “strictly restrict and cut off all the overland passages through the Military Demarcation Line.”

The 154-mile border between the two countries, which have technically been at war since North Korea invaded the South in 1950, was reopened last year as relations thawed, The Telegraph reported.

The first train journey from the South, passing through the 2.5-mile wide Demilitarised Zone, was hailed as a landmark in the reunification of the peninsula.

Since then, however, a new South Korean Prime Minister, Lee Myung Bak, has pledged to take a more conservative line with the North and rumours have started to spread that Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, is either dead or close-to-death, the paper said.

North Korea has recently undertaken a series of sabre-rattling missile tests and used its nuclear weapons programme as a bargaining chip until it was taken off the United States terrorism blacklist.

North Korea shut its land border with China at Dandong on October 11, immediately after the Mass Games celebrating the 60th anniversary of the country’s foundation.

Visitors from China have been required to fly from Shenyang or Beijing, and no residents in the three provinces neighbouring North Korea have been permitted visas, in case they are originally of North Korean origin.

Furthermore, sources involved in North Korean travel said all transport ties to China would be cut by December 10.

The border closure with South Korea will effectively close the Kaesong industrial complex in the North, which is funded by the South.

North Korean state media has blamed the disintegration in relations on the “traitor” Lee, accusing the South Korean president of “grave crimes”. (ANI)