North Korea has broken its silence on the political crisis in rival South for the first time, accusing president Yoon Suk Yeol of a “fascist dictatorship”, a week after his botched attempt to impose martial law in the country.

Last year, a political blockbuster gripped South Korea with a dramatization of a painful memory from its authoritarian past, when the assassination of President Park Chung-hee in 1979 led to a military coup and plunged the country into the iron grip of martial law.