North Korea says its revised constitution defines South Korea as 'hostile state' for first time

North Korea confirmed Thursday that its recently revised constitution defines South Korea as 'a hostile state' for the first time, two days after it blew up front-line road and rail links that once connected the country with the South.

North Korea confirmed Thursday that its recently revised constitution defines South Korea as "a hostile state" for the first time, two days after it blew up front-line road and rail links that once connected the country with the South.

North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament met for two days last week to rewrite the constitution but state media hadn't immediately provided many details about the session. Leader Kim Jong Un had called for the constitutional change at that parliamentary meeting to designate South Korea as the country's main enemy, remove the goal of a peaceful Korean unification and define the North's sovereign, territorial sphere.

The official Korean Central News Agency said Thursday that its recent demolition of parts of the northern sections of the inter-Korean road and rail links was "an inevitable and legitimate measure taken in keeping with the requirement of the DPRK constitution which clearly defines the ROK as a hostile state."

DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name, while ROK stands for Republic of Korea, the South's formal name.

KCNA gave no further details of the new constitution. An earlier KCNA report on the Oct. 7-8 meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly only said the constitution was revised to amend the legal ages of North Koreans for working and participating in elections, but didn't say whether the meeting dealt with Kim's demand as well.

"There may still be an internal propaganda review underway about the appropriate way to disclose the constitutional revisions, but this confirmation was expected," said Ankit Panda, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Kim's order in January to rewrite the constitution caught many foreign experts by surprise because it was seen as eliminating the idea of shared statehood between the war-divided Koreas and breaking away with his predecessors' long-cherished dreams of peacefully achieving a unified Korea on the North's terms. In the past months, North Korea has torn down monuments symbolizing rapprochement with South Korea and abolished state agencies handling inter-Korean relations.