Inside incredible Starbucks where you can sip a coffee whilst spying on North Korea

The Starbucks at the border observatory in South Korea is part of a scheme to attract tourists to the area - despite ongoing tensions with its northern neighbour

Coffee aficionados fancying a somewhat unusual view can take to spying on North Korea from a brand new Starbucks at a South Korean border observatory.

Customers will need to pass a military checkpoint before they order a cappuccino at the Aegibong Peace Ecopark, which overlooks North Korea's Songaksan and the nearby village in Kaephung county. Tables and windows face toward the totalitarian state.

About 40 people, a few of whom were foreign tourists, came to the Starbucks when it opened on Friday. The South Korean city of Gimpo said the Starbucks was part of efforts to further develop the border facilities at the destination.

City officials added it symbolises "robust security on the Korean Peninsula through the presence of this iconic capitalist brand.” The observatory is a major installation at Aegibong park, which was built on a hill that was the site of fierce fighting during the Korean War in the 1950s.

The park includes gardens, an exhibition and conference halls as well as a war memorial dedicated to fallen soldiers. Gimpo and other border cities in South Korea have been working to further develop their border sites to attract more tourism, the Associate Press reported.

It comes as tensions continue on the Korean Peninsula with Kim Jong-un recently agreeing to a deal with Russia's Vladimir Putin to send his country's soldiers to fight in Ukraine. The move, primarily aimed to bolster Putin's dwindling troop numbers, will also have the secondary impact of giving battle experience to North Korean troops who have not seen active combat since the 1950s conflict.

North Korea continues to engage in both psychological and electronic warfare against its southern neighbour, such as sending over balloons filled with rubbish and disrupting GPS signals from boarder areas.

South Korean officials said that the communist state sent over several more balloons overnight, some of which fell on the country's capital Seoul. Despite signing an armistice in July 1953, the countries technically remain in conflict with one another with both claiming to be the only legitimate government on the peninsula.