Iran Press/ Asia: Pyongyang rejected South Korea's offer to send special envoys to the North after it blew up an office meant for inter-Korea peace talks on Tuesday.
Instead, the North said it will redeploy troops to two inter-Korea tourist and economic sites near its heavily fortified border with the South.
The ratcheting up of tensions comes in reaction to North Korean defectors and South Korean activists sending leaflets about leader Kim Jong Un over the border via balloons - an act that has been going on for years.
Park Sang Hak, a North Korean defector and head of an anti-North Korea civic group living in the South, has been sending leaflets denouncing Kim Jong Un to the North
Military units will be deployed at the sites of the Mount Kumgang resort in the east and the Kaesong industrial complex, where the building it destroyed was, the North's General Staff said.
Once symbols of cooperation, the sites have been left empty for years as the two Koreas disagreed over the North's nuclear program.
The North said it will also get its citizens to fly propaganda balloons towards South Korea.
And it will restore guard posts in the demilitarized zone, which were removed in a 2018 peace agreement, and resume "all kinds of regular military exercises" near the border which were stopped under the agreement.
In a step seen as a strengthening of her power, Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jung, criticized South Korean President Moon Jae-in for failing to apologize for the leaflets and accused him of "pro-US flunkeyism".
The South's Defense Ministry warned the North will pay the price if it takes military action, with the unification ministry expressing "strong regret" over the North's plans to send troops to the joint zones.
Talks between the two Koreas have been almost at a standstill since February last year when a summit between Pyongyang and Washington came to nothing.
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