The past year has been a troubling period for North Korean institutions that handle inter-Korean dialogue. In June 2020, Pyongyang destroyed the inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong, and in March 2021 the North threatened to abolish the Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Country, the counterpart to the South’s Ministry of Unification.

Now another key institution appears to be in peril — the Northern Committee for Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration. This body, created in 2005, seeks to implement not only the first inter-Korean summit declaration of 2000 in cooperation with counterpart committees in the South but all inter-Korean agreements