This undated image grab taken from footage shown by North Korea's KCTV and released by South Korea's Yonhap news agency on Monday shows Jang Song-thaek (center) reportedly being dragged from his chair during a meeting in Pyongyang. Photo: AFP/Yonhap

 
North Korea is engaged in a purge amounting to a "reign of terror" that has claimed the scalp of the country's second most powerful man and risks further damaging relations with the South, President Park Geun-hye said on Tuesday.

"North Korea is currently carrying out a reign of terror, undertaking a large-scale purge in order to strengthen Kim Jong-un's power," Park told a cabinet meeting, part of which was broadcast on television.

"From now on, South-North Korea relations may become more unstable."

In her usual carefully scripted manner, the president called for vigilance to safeguard the wealthy South's achievements.

"In times like these, I think it is a nation's duty and politicians' job to keep people safe and free democracy strong," she told the meeting.

State media on Monday said Jang Song-thaek, the uncle of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un, had been dismissed from his posts for "criminal acts" ranging from mismanagement and corruption to leading a "dissolute and depraved life."

Television in the tightly controlled and impoverished state showed him being frog-marched by uniformed personnel out of a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party.

South Korea's intelligence service last week said two of Jang's close entourage had been executed for corruption and two of his relatives serving in embassies overseas had been recalled.

Although experts expect further reprisals against Jang's allies, no firm evidence has emerged of mass punishments. Members of the South's parliament, however, said last week that Kim Jong-un was resorting to fear to cement his leadership.

"Kim Jong-un is strengthening the reign of terror ... Last year 17 people were publicly executed but this year there were about 40," Cho Won-jin, a lawmaker, told journalists after a briefing by the NIS intelligence agency. It was the NIS that first broke news last week that Jang had been dismissed.

Cho also said authorities were enforcing harsher rules on videos being imported illegally into North Korea.

Tension rose sharply on the Korean peninsula earlier this year after the United Nations imposed tough, new sanctions on Pyongyang in response to its latest nuclear test.

It eased as South and North Korea reopened the joint Kaesong factory park in September just north of the heavily militarized border, five months after the North abruptly shut it.

But despite the gesture to reopen the only remaining cooperation endeavor between North and South, Pyongyang again warned it would turn Seoul into a "sea of fire."

Reuters