Starbucks coffee and a glimpse of a North Korean mountain village

A visitor watched North Korean side at the observatory of the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea — Coffee drinkers can sip their beverages and view a quiet North Korean mountain village from a new Starbucks at a South Korean border observatory.

Customers have to pass a military checkpoint before entering the observatory at Aegibong Peace Ecopark, which is less than a mile from North Korean territory and overlooks North Korea’s Songaksan mountain and a nearby village in Kaephung county.

The tables and windows face North Korea at the Starbucks, where about 40 people, a few of them foreigners, came to the opening Friday.

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The South Korean city of Gimpo said hosting Starbucks was part of efforts to develop its border facilities as a tourist destination and said the shop symbolizes “robust security on the Korean Peninsula through the presence of this iconic capitalist brand.”

The observatory is the key facility at Aegibong park, which was built on a hill that was a fierce battle site during the 1950-53 Korean War. The park also has gardens, exhibition and conference halls and a war memorial dedicated to fallen marines.

Gimpo and other South Korean border cities like Paju have been trying to develop their border sites as tourist assets, even as tensions grow between the war-divided Koreas.

Visitors sit at newly opened Starbucks store as North Korea’s Kaephung county is seen on background at the observatory of the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. Agence France-Presse

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been trying to raise pressure on South Korea and threatening to attack his rival with nuclear weapons if provoked. North Korea has also engaged in psychological and electronic warfare against South Korea, such as flying trash-laden balloons into the South and disrupting GPS signals from border areas near the South’s biggest airport.

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Kaephung county is believed to be one of the possible sites from where North Korea has launched the thousands of balloons over several months.

South Korea’s military said Friday that the North flew dozens more balloons overnight and that some trash and leaflets landed around the capital Seoul and nearby Gyeonggi province.