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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
World News: North Korea warns drills could lead to nuclear war
Published Date: 13 December 2010
North Korea warned today that US-South Korean co-operation could bring nuclear war to the region.
The warning came as the South began artillery drills amid lingering tension nearly three weeks after the North's deadly shelling of a South Korean island.
The South's naval live-fire drills are due to run until Friday at 27 sites.
The regularly-scheduled exercises are getting special attention following a North Korean artillery attack on front-line Yeonpyeong Island which killed two South Korean marines and two civilians.
A South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff officer tried to play down the significance of this week's drills, saying they were part of routine military exercises and would not occur near the disputed western Korean sea border.
North Korea, however, lashed out at Seoul, accusing South Korea of collaborating with the US and Japan to step up pressure on Pyongyang.
That co-operation "is nothing but treachery escalating the tension between the North and the South and bringing the dark clouds of a nuclear war to hang over the Korean peninsula", Pyongyang's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
South Korea stages more military drills
BBC News - 13 December 2010 Last updated at 09:38 GMT
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...10775852-1.jpg
Both Japan and South Korea have carried out joint military exercises with the US in the past few weeks
South Korea has begun another week-long series of live-fire military exercises along most of its coastline.
However, the drills will avoid the disputed western sea-border, where North Korea shelled an island last month, killing four South Koreans.
North Korea said that attack was in direct response to South Korean military exercises there. It says drills by the South are a provocation.
There have been intense international diplomatic efforts to calm the crisis.
Last week, China's top diplomat met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, with Chinese state media reporting a "consensus" had been reached.
The US has been putting pressure on China - the North's main ally - to intervene in the crisis.
Top US military official Adm Mike Mullen has accused China of "enabling" North Korea's "reckless behaviour".
China has hit back, saying military threats cannot resolve tensions on the Korean peninsula.
In a hardening of policy, South Korea has threatened to mount air strikes on the North if it carries out further attacks.
China, which supplies food and fuel to North Korea, has so far refused to condemn the attack on Yeonpyeong, the first attack of its kind on South Korean civilians since the Korean War ended in a ceasefire in 1953.
Both Japan and South Korea have carried out joint military exercises with the US in the past few weeks.
China has criticised those exercises as an attempt at US containment in an area Beijing sees as its own responsibility.
North Korea has been defending its shelling of Yeonpyeong as a response to extensive live-firing from the South.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
Updated: 8:02 AM Dec 13, 2010
N. Korea Warns Of Nuclear War
North Korea issued a warning Monday that the U.S. and South Korea were courting nuclear war by joining forces as tension escalates on the Korean peninsula.
Posted: 8:02 AM Dec 13, 2010
Reporter: KKTV
(Local to Colorado Springs)
North Korea issued a warning Monday that the U.S. and South Korea were courting nuclear war by joining forces as tension escalates on the Korean peninsula.
The U.S. reaffirmed its alliance with South Korea following the November 23 artillery barrage, when North Korea fired artillery shells at a South Korean island, its first assault on a civilian area since the end of the Korean War. Two civilians were among the four people killed in the attack. The U.S. and South Korea have staged joint military drills since the attack despite warnings from the North.
The U.S. and South Korea have also began talks Monday morning on security issues; according to Seoul’s Defense Ministry, some of the items on the agenda are standard for defense talks, but plans concerning North Korea are also expected to be discussed. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg will be visiting China, a North Korean ally, Wednesday.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson leaves the U.S. for North Korea on Tuesday. Richardson, who has acted as a diplomatic troubleshooter on a number of occasions, has made regular visits to North Korea. He has also hosted North Korean officials in New Mexico.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Artillery drills set to be conducted by South Korea this week have prompted a fresh salvo of hostile rhetoric from North Korea.
It says U.S.-South Korea cooperation could bring a nuclear war to the Korean Peninsula.
The warning comes amid lingering tension nearly three weeks after the North's deadly shelling of a South Korean island. Two South Korean marines and two civilians were killed. The attack came during a military drill. But the South says it fired shells southward, not toward the North, as part of routine exercises.
A military official downplayed this week's drills, saying they were regularly scheduled.
Meanwhile, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, leaves the U.S. for North Korea on Tuesday. Richardson, who has often acted as a diplomatic troubleshooter, has made regular visits to North Korea and has also hosted North Korean officials in New Mexico
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
North Korea: Cold-war legacy
CSMonitor.com - December 12, 2010
The World War II Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula ended in 1945 when the United Nations gave control of the North to the Soviets and the South to the United States. Separate nations - North Korea and South Korea - were established in 1948. But North Korea, seeking unification, invaded the South in 1950, sparking the Korean War in which the UN supported the South, and China and the Soviet Union backed the North. The uneasy cold-war legacy of confrontation-rapprochement-confrontation has characterized the past half century:
1968 - North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, a Navy spy ship; its crew of 83 is released 11 months later.
1969 - North Korea shoots down a US spy plane over the Sea of Japan; its 31-member crew perishes.
1976 - In the "ax murder" incident, North Korean troops kill two US Army officers as they prune a tree in the demilitarized zone to improve surveillance.
1988 - US imposes sanctions on North Korea, which is added to a list of state sponsors of terrorism.
1989 - US satellite photos show a nuclear reprocessing plant in Youngbyon.
1994 - Former President Jimmy Carter flies to Pyongyang to try to broker a deal over its nuclear program.
1998 - North Korea launches its first long-range ballistic missile.
2002 - President Bush names North Korea, along with Iran and Iraq, as part of an "Axis of Evil."
2003 - North Korea withdraws from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear program begin in Beijing.
2005 - North Korea says, for the first time, it has nuclear weapons.
2006 - North Korea conducts its first nuclear test.
2007 - Passenger trains traverse the North-South border for the first time in more than 50 years.
2008 - North Korea dynamites a cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear facility as a commitment to "denuclearization." The US later removes North Korea from its list of terrorist nations.
2009 - North Korea arrests two US journalists at the Chinese border, sentencing them to 12 years of hard labor. Former President Bill Clinton travels to North Korea and wins their release.
In April, North Korea launches a long-range rocket and announces intent to quit the six-party talks. A second nuclear test is conducted in May, which draws further UN sanctions. Ballistic missiles launched in July.
2010 - In January, North Korea imprisons Aijalon Gomes, an American who taught English in South Korea, after he crosses the border. Mr. Carter helps negotiate his release in August.
In March, a North Korean submarine fires a torpedo at a South Korean naval ship - 46 sailors die.
In November, North Korea shells a South Korean island near the disputed Yellow Sea border, killing two South Korean marines and two civilians. Days later, the US and South Korea proceed with scheduled war exercises in the Yellow Sea.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea warned Monday that U.S.-South Korean cooperation could bring a nuclear war to the region, as the South began artillery drills amid lingering tension nearly three weeks after the North's deadly shelling of a South Korean island.
The South's naval live-fire drills are scheduled to run Monday through Friday at 27 sites. The regularly scheduled exercises are getting special attention following a North Korean artillery attack on front-line Yeonpyeong Island that killed two South Korean marines and two civilians.
The Nov. 23 artillery barrage, the North's first assault to target a civilian area since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, began after the North said South Korea first fired artillery toward its territorial waters. South Korea says it fired shells southward, not toward North Korea, as part of routine exercises.
After the attack, South Korea staged joint military drills with the United States and also pushed ahead with more artillery exercises, despite the North's warning that they would aggravate tension.
A South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff officer tried to play down the significance of this week's drills, saying they are part of routine military exercises and would not occur near the disputed western Korean sea border where last month's attack took place. The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of office policy, gave no further details.
North Korea, however, lashed out at Seoul, accusing South Korea of collaborating with the United States and Japan to ratchet up pressure on Pyongyang.
That cooperation "is nothing but treachery escalating the tension between the North and the South and bringing the dark clouds of a nuclear war to hang over the Korean peninsula," Pyongyang's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea has often issued similar threats during standoffs.
In a show of unity, top diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan met in Washington last week and said they would not resume negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program until the country's behavior changes. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited South Korea last week and warned Pyongyang to stop its "belligerent, reckless behavior."
On Monday, South Korean and U.S. defence officials met in Seoul for one-day discussions on North Korea and other issues that are part of regular defence talks, according to Seoul's Defense Ministry.
At the opening of the meeting, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Schiffer said "the United States stands shoulder to shoulder with the Republic of Korea and with the Korean people in the face of recent North Korean provocations," referring to South Korea by its formal name.
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg was also set to visit China later this week for talks on North Korea amid international pressure for Beijing to use its diplomatic clout to rein in North Korea, its ally. After the China meeting, senior U.S. officials accompanying Steinberg will travel on to Seoul and Tokyo.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, meanwhile, leaves the United States for North Korea on Tuesday. Richardson, who has often acted as a diplomatic troubleshooter, has made regular visits to North Korea and has also hosted North Korean officials in New Mexico.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
Countdown to Oblivion: North Korea artillery strike - the Start of the First Nuclear War?
By Tom Cain
Last updated at 6:08 PM on 27th November 2010
Top thriller writer Tom Cain imagines what would happen if the North and South Korea stand-off detonated the world's First Nuclear War in this fictional account.
At the time, people called it the Third World War. Now though, we refer to the terrible events of late 2010 in a different way. We call this the First Nuclear War.
It began on November 23, 2010, when North Korean artillery bombarded the small island of Yeonpyeong, which lies in the Yellow Sea, just south of the maritime border between the two Koreas.
More than 60 properties were set ablaze and four people were killed. South Korea’s staunch ally President Barack Obama immediately dispatched an aircraft carrier to take part in exercises with the South Korean Navy in the Yellow Sea.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...86_468x286.jpg Forward march: North Korean soldiers during a massive military parade
Meanwhile, China — a traditional supporter of North Korea — remained ominously silent, pointedly refusing to join in the chorus of international criticism that had followed the shelling. In the South Korean capital Seoul, President Lee Myung-bak called for restraint. But it was a lone voice of peace.
Meanwhile, the official North Korean news agency declared that: ‘North Korea will wage second and even third rounds of attacks without any hesitation, if warmongers in South Korea make reckless military provocations again.’
Inexorably, the rhetoric on both sides became ever more heated. Now, two of the most militarised nations on earth — North Korea had the world’s fourth-largest army, South Korea the sixth — found themselves trapped aboard a runaway political train.
Its momentum was unstoppable. And its destination was war.
The two nations faced one another across a border that ran across the Korean peninsula, roughly along the line of the 38th parallel.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...89_233x423.jpg President Barack Obama: Ally of South Korea
Their joint forces, including regular personnel and reserves, comprised a staggering 13.7million trained men and women, enough to turn the two nations into a gigantic killing-ground. Added to them were the 28,500 personnel of the United States Forces Korea, based at Yongsan Garrison, Seoul, the former Korean HQ of the Imperial Japanese Army.
The two sides squared off across the most heavily fortified national border on earth, their forces separated by a two-and-a-half-mile-wide Demilitarised Zone, or DMZ. At its nearest point, the border was barely 25 miles from downtown Seoul.
If the North Koreans could cross the border and get to Seoul quickly enough, they could strike a blow from which the South would never recover.
For decades they had been planning just such a strike. On the North Korean side of the DMZ, gigantic underground caverns had been dug in which whole armies could assemble undetected. Four times they had tried to tunnel under the DMZ, attempting to get their forces in behind enemy lines. Each time they had been detected.
But no one detected tunnels five and six. Each had been dug more than 500ft down and was big enough to allow a 3,000-man division to pass through in an hour. At midnight on Wednesday, December 1, 2010, the first North Korean Special Forces went into the tunnels. At 3am they struck.
A thunderous barrage of heavy artillery tore into the American and South Korean defensive positions across the DMZ.
A dozen of the projectiles used were atomic shells, miniature atom-bombs with an explosive power equivalent to 400 tons of TNT, enough to devastate even the most hardened enemy bunker.
As the forces along the South Korean side of the DMZ struggled to recover from this hammer-blow, they were hit from the rear by what seemed like a never-ending surge of highly-trained, ruthless and utterly merciless North Korean troops.
By 5am, the North Koreans had punched a two-mile-wide hole in the South’s defences.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...35_468x312.jpg The start of something more? A South Korean Marine base burns after being hit by North Korean artillery shells on Yeonpyeong island in this November 23
Now their tanks, artillery and motorised infantry overran any pitiful remnants of resistance and raced south, heading for Seoul.
U.S. and South Korean pilots were scrambled and hit the advancing North Koreans from the air. The remaining U.S. troops at Yongsan Garrison were dragged from their beds and trucked north to meet the oncoming hordes. The South Koreans, too, charged to the defence of their capital.
The North Korean advance was finally halted on the outskirts of Seoul, along the line of Highway 100 which runs in an arc around the north of the city.
Washington DC is 14 hours behind Korean time. So it was lunchtime there on November 30 when the North Korean attack began.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...30_233x423.jpg South Korean President Lee Myung-bak
All through the afternoon, President Obama was locked in frantic discussions with his military and diplomatic advisers, fellow western leaders and his counterparts in Moscow and Beijing.
The use of nuclear shells against U.S. forces had shocked the nation and Middle America wanted revenge.
A few voices urged caution and a sprinkling of peaceniks took to the streets to demonstrate against the looming war. But they were far outnumbered by the masses baying for blood.
At 9pm, Washington time, just as the North Korean advance was grinding to a halt outside Seoul, President Obama addressed the people.
He informed them that he had issued an ultimatum to North Korea. Withdraw across the border within 24 hours, or face the might of U.S. military power.
Any sane opponent would have taken this warning seriously. But sanity has never been a concept associated with North Korea.
The country’s leadership was in transition as the Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il prepared to hand over to his 26-year-old son, Kim Jong-un.
This war was the young man’s rite of passage and — bitterly frustrated at his army’s inability to take the South’s capital — he wanted to force the issue.
Shortly after 2pm Korean time (midnight in Washington) Kim Jong-un gave the order for two nuclear missiles to be fired at the 24.5million people who lived in Seoul and its suburbs.
The first missile obliterated Incheon International Airport. The second hit the Yongsan district, instantly killing more than 250,000 people, sending a cloud of deadly nuclear fallout drifting across the city and wiping the U.S. forces’ HQ at Yongsan Garrison off the face of the earth.
President Obama did not act at once. In one final bid to avert all-out nuclear war, he amended his ultimatum.
Now the North Koreans had six hours to retreat across their border and surrender unconditionally, or he would, as he put it, ‘bring down the wrath of the American people on your heads’.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...51_468x312.jpg Respect: South Korean veterans salute during a memorial service for the marines killed in the bombardment this week
Meanwhile, in Moscow hardliners were urging Vladimir Putin to stand back and do nothing to stop the looming conflagration. Why not let Russia’s two greatest enemies destroy one another?
Moderates, however, saw this as a chance for Russia to appear statesmanlike on the world stage. They urged Putin to offer his help to avert catastrophe.
A similar argument was being played out in Beijing. The case for peace was very simple. China held $2trillion of U.S. debt. The U.S. was also its biggest overseas market.
The economic links between the two nations made war a financial disaster. But China was in a belligerent, muscle-flexing mood. With two hours to go before the U.S. deadline, Beijing made an announcement of its own. Any use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. on North Korean soil would be seen as an incursion into China’s sphere of influence and thus an attack on China itself.
Obama could not be seen to back down. When his deadline passed without any response from North Korea, he ordered cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads to be fired at North Korean military and government installations in the capital, Pyongyang. The country’s leadership was torn apart, but there were inevitably tens of thousands of civilian casualties too.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...63_468x254.jpg US military carrier: The USS George Washington set sail from Yokosuka naval base, south of Tokyo on Wednesday as tensions rose
But this attack meant that China had been defied and thus lost face. To reclaim its pride, it had to be seen to retaliate. For their target, the Chinese chose the massive new £8billion U.S. military base on the Pacific island of Guam.
One CSS-5 ballistic missile, armed with a 300 kiloton warhead, equivalent to 300,000 tons of TNT, crippled American power in the region at a stroke.
The U.S. was locked in a deadly game of tit-for-tat. China’s nuclear submarine base at Sanya, on the very southernmost tip of the Chinese mainland, vanished from the earth as another gigantic mushroom cloud spread across the sky.
The scale of the conflict was ratcheted even higher as the Chinese retaliated with a multiple strike on American missile silos at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana.
Chinese computer scientists launched a massive cyber-attack, hoping to cripple America’s computer and internet systems. On land, Chinese forces began moving into North Korea, coming to the aid of their North Korean brothers.
In response to a nuclear attack on American soil, Pentagon plans called for retaliation using weapons far more powerful than any that had yet been deployed.
But that could plunge the world into a nuclear winter and risk the destruction of civilisation itself.
It was a crazy gamble, yet no one dared back down. China and America were engaged in a nuclear-powered game of chicken. And the survival of the planet was at stake.
Around the world, billions watched helplessly as Armageddon loomed.
In Britain, while a few jokers tried to raise spirits with old Dad’s Army catchphrases such as ‘Don’t panic!’ or ‘We’re all doomed!’, most people were gripped by gut-wrenching tension, fear and despondency.
In Whitehall, old Cold War-era plans for coping with nuclear attack were hurriedly dusted down. Meanwhile, for the first time in half a century, the Royal Navy prepared to use its ultimate weapon.
Britain’s nuclear deterrent, comprising 160 nuclear warheads (roughly comparable with China’s nuclear stockpile) was based aboard four Vanguard-class nuclear submarines, operating from Clyde Naval Base on the west coast of Scotland.
As always, one of the submarines was at sea on patrol — on this occasion on a secret route in the Pacific —- and David Cameron was privately thankful that its payload had not yet been halved from 16 Trident missiles to eight, as the 2010 Strategic Defence Review had suggested.
With Washington seemingly committed to nuclear war, Britain could find itself dragged into yet another American-led conflict.
On land, strategists and weapons technicians frantically attempted to select targets in China that would give the Prime Minister options from a single warning shot to a multi-warhead attack.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...77_468x313.jpg Collapse: A damaged house on Yeonpyeong Island
Yet any UK action would be entirely dependent on the U.S. guidance satellites, without which British missiles could not find their targets.
And it would only happen in the event of a total nuclear war, in which Britain itself could well be annihilated by missiles fired from Chinese nuclear submarines.
So in the end, David Cameron was effectively helpless. All he could do was to sit, watch and pray, just like everyone else.
Others, however, were not sitting and waiting.
Just as 9/11 had been a good day to bury bad news, so this was a good day to get away with bad behaviour. For Israel, it presented a golden opportunity to strike at a target on which it had long had its cross-hairs sighted: Iran’s two uranium enrichment plants at Esfehan and Natanz.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...73_233x423.jpg Kim Jong Il: North Korean leader visits newly built apartment houses in Pyongyang
Israel had never confirmed or denied that it possessed nuclear weapons, but had long been assumed to do so. The assumption proved to be correct as a volley of submarine-launched Cruise missiles, each armed with nuclear warheads, ensured that, whatever its purpose, Iran’s enrichment programme no longer existed.
Israel’s enemies were equally opportunistic.
From his base in the mountainous Waziristan region of Pakistan, Osama bin Laden sent messages to Al Qaeda’s satellite organisations in the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, North Africa and Europe.
Long-term plans for terrorist missions were to be activated as soon as possible.
On the basis that his enemy’s enemy was his friend, Bin Laden had sided with China. Now he would cause the maximum possible havoc as a means of demonstrating his support.
In Washington, Obama tried again for peace, pleading with the Chinese to see reason. He called for them to cease all attacks on the U.S., its forces and its allies, and withdraw Chinese troops from the Korean peninsula.
Arguing that the Chinese had made an unprovoked nuclear attack on the U.S., President Obama demanded the cancellation of all American debt to China as reparation for the destruction of the U.S. facilities on Guam and in Wyoming. The Chinese government were given just one hour to respond.
Twenty minutes went by...30...no word from Beijing. At the 40-minute mark, the launch procedure was initiated for more than 50 U.S. missiles armed with multiple warheads, each of which could destroy a city.
Worryingly, U.S. spy satellites were now reporting activity at all known Chinese nuclear missile sites. They were preparing for action.
Fifty minutes...at the UN, more than 150 nations called on the U.S. and China to seek peace.
Fifty-five minutes...the hardened tops of the U.S. missile silos drew back to reveal the apocalyptic weapons that lay within.
In Moscow, Putin was lost in thought, running through different moves in his head like a chess grand master.
Fifty-six minutes...57...Obama looked to the heavens and muttered a prayer of forgiveness for what was about to be done at his command.
At 58 minutes, Vladimir Putin reached for his telephone and ordered that he be put through to the leaders of the U.S. and China. The connection process took another agonisingly long 30 seconds.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...77_468x339.jpg Torched: South Korean activists burn a North Korean national flag and anti-North Korea placards during a protest in Seoul
Putin did not mince his words. He pointed out that any full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and China would cripple both nations.
It would also leave Russia as the one country on earth with an intact, large-scale nuclear arsenal. The lone superpower.
If the two leaders wished to destroy one another for Russia’s benefit, Putin had no objection. But if they wished to seek peace, even at this late stage, he was prepared to act as an honest broker.
‘Hold the countdown!’ Obama barked.
Now, silence fell on the line as the Chinese President Hu Jintao considered his options.
Obama was the first to speak: ‘Mr President, I can restart the countdown at any time.’
His voice was calm, but the threat in the words was overwhelming.
‘Very well,’ said Hu Jintao. ‘We will talk.’
War had, for now, been averted. The American eagle and the Chinese dragon had laid down their arms.
But as the world rejoiced at its deliverance from catastrophe, the Russian bear, its power and prestige restored to all its former glory, was preparing to growl once again.
And as the nuclear fallout from Israel’s strikes settled in Iran, the Islamic world became more determined to destroy the Jewish state.
And so, at this moment of apparent peace, a second nuclear conflict was already looming...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...#ixzz180P02zV0
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea said the U.S. is promoting military hysteria in South Korea and Japan to provoke an “all-out war” that will spread outside the Korean Peninsula.
“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to the phase of an all-out war due to the reckless provocations of the U.S.” and its allies, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported late yesterday, citing a statement from a spokesman for the country’s National Peace Committee of Korea.
The mobilization of South Korean, Japanese and U.S. air, land and sea forces will mean the conflict won’t be “confined to a local war,” KCNA said. North Korea’s army and people “are ready for both an escalated war and an all-out war.”
North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last month, the first such attack on South Korean territory since the 1950-53 Korean War, raised tensions already heightened by the March sinking of a South Korean warship. An international panel said the sinking was caused by a North Korean torpedo.
The warship case and the island shelling incident have been “cooked up” by the U.S. and its allies, KCNA cited the spokesman as saying yesterday. North Korea has said last month’s shelling was in response to a military provocation after South Korea fired into waters each country claims as its own.
China Talks
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il met with China’s State Councilor Dai Bingguo in Pyongyang last week and “reached important consensus” on issues of the Korean peninsula, China’s Foreign Ministry said at the time.
China must “lead and guide North Korea to a better future,” U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said while visiting Tokyo last week. China suffers from “myopia” in failing to persuade North Korea to change its behavior, he said.
China responded by saying Mullen was increasing tensions in the region rather than defusing them.
“Those persons making accusations against China, I ask what kind of efforts has he done to promote regional stability and peace,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Dec. 9. “Military threats cannot solve problems and can only increase tensions.”
China has refused to take sides in the standoff between North Korea and South Korea while criticizing regional military exercises by the U.S., South Korea and Japan in recent weeks as counterproductive.
Six-Nation Forum
The U.S., Japan and South Korea rejected China’s Nov. 28 proposal to reconvene six-nation negotiations over dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program, saying Kim’s regime has failed to fulfill previous agreements. Instead, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week met her Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Washington.
The six-nation talks, involving North Korea, South Korea, China, the U.S., Japan and Russia, stalled in April 2009. North Korea’s Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun left Pyongyang yesterday for a visit to Russia, KCNA reported.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will travel to North Korea this week on a “private visit,” State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said Dec. 8 in Washington. Richardson, who has been to North Korea several times, will likely share details of his trip with the State Department when he returns, Crowley said.
Japan plans to deploy additional forces nationwide against the threat of a North Korean missile attack, Kyodo news service reported yesterday, citing unidentified government and self- defense forces officials.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
The words have ramped up folks. NOW keep your eyes open for outward hostilities that might trigger something bigger.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rick Donaldson
The words have ramped up folks. NOW keep your eyes open for outward hostilities that might trigger something bigger.
I feel the same Rick.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
North Korean Defectors Ask to Help Fight Their Former Homeland
VOANews - December 13, 2010
Steve Herman | Seoul
Since the November 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong island, there has been rising anger in South Korea. Many South Koreans are angry at what they consider their government's mild response to the attack, which killed four people. Among those who want tougher action is a group of North Korean defectors.
NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS SPEAK UP
North Korean defectors who served in the communist state's military are asking to be allowed to take on their former comrades.
A group called the North Korea Peoples Liberation Front on Monday delivered a petition to the South Korean defense ministry. They want permission to become a special force to help end the communist government in the North.
Kim Seong-min is the organization's chairman. Kim says if they are given rifles, they will march to the front lines, such as Yeonpyeong island, which was hit by North Korean shells last month.
Park Chun-guk says he is a former commander of a North Korean special forces division.
Park says a thief knows what other thieves might do. Likewise, he says, the former North Korean soldiers understand the situation in the North, as well as the tactics and the mindset of its soldiers.
DEFECTORS OUTLOOK
The defectors predict North Korea's provocations against the South will continue. That is because heir apparent Kim Jong Un needs to demonstrate credibility as a leader, much as his father, Kim Jong Il, did in the 1980's before succeeding his late father, Kim Il Sung.
More than 20,000 defectors from the North live in South Korea.
The two Koreas have remained technically at war since 1953 when three years of conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Tension between the two has been high since the sinking of a South Korean naval ship in March. An international investigation concluded that the Cheonan was hit by a North Korean torpedo, killing 46 sailors. Pyongyang denies any involvement.
The North, however, did acknowledge last month's shelling of Yeonpyeong. It says the attack was justified because a South Korean military exercise on the island fired shells into disputed waters off the west coast.
South Korea is conducting a second consecutive week of live-fire exercises. Officials have not confirmed whether any firing will take place in the disputed maritime region.
Pyongyang says such exercises, along with recent naval maneuvers the United States has conducted with South Korea and Japan, are bringing the Korean peninsula closer to war.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
Mullen just addressed the troops. Basically he stated that the threat of war has increased drastically. There is no more tit-for-tat with South Korea.
They will certainly defend themselves.
A few moments before this, KT Mcfarland (former Asst. Sec Def under Reagan) was on FNC addressing nearly the same thing. She stated that there was going to be no more attack for attack. If South Korea is attacked again, they will go all out.
And she went on to point out that "the United States is a defensive partner" and all that entails.
We will get dragged into this if NK shoots again.
Thus, China (she pointed out this as well) has done nothing at all to stop the North's belligerence. China will be dragged in as well as the US.
This will get ugly, very quickly.
See the Thermonuclear War thread, and pay heed to the various messages there. Please.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
Top US officer says risk of war rising in Koreas
By ANNE GEARAN - Dec 13, 2010 2:17 PM GMT-0200
By The Associated Press
BAGHDAD (AP) - The top US military officer says the danger of war or hostilities is rising on the Korean peninsula.
Adm. Mike Mullen says North Korea has raised the ante in its aggression against South Korea.
Mullen told troops on Monday that the old tit for tat pattern with North Korea has changed. He said the North's provocations are tied to preparations for leader Kim Jong Ill's son to take power.
Copyright © 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
BRV, glad you're staying on top of this.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
Russia worried about N.Korea's nuclear activities
(AFP) – 1 hour ago
MOSCOW — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday he was deeply worried by North Korea's capacity to enrich uranium which could be used to make nuclear weapons.
During a meeting with his North Korean counterpart Pak Ui-Chun, "Lavrov expressed his deep concern about information about the industrial uranium enrichment capability at Yongbyon," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Yongbyon has been for decades at the heart of North Korea's drive for nuclear weapons, with a now-ageing gas graphite reactor producing enough plutonium for possibly six to eight bombs.
Lavrov "called on North Korea to comply with UN Security Council resolutions 1718 and 1874," said the statement.
Resolution 1874, which was adopted unanimously by the Security Council on June 12, 2009, imposes economic and trade sanctions on North Korea for failing to comply with resolution 1718 over its nuclear programme.
Moscow also called for a resumption of six-party talks on the programme.
"The Russian side noted that it was indispensable to relaunch the process of six-party talks on the North Korea issue," said Lavrov.
Russia is one of the six countries involved in the stalled talks alongside the two Koreas, China, Japan and the United States.
China proposed in late November to hold a new meeting but the idea has been cold-shouldered by Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.
Moscow, along with Beijing, has had warm relations with communist North Korea since the days of the old Soviet Union and has sought to ease tensions after North Korea's artillery attack on a South Korean island on November 23.
Talks between Lavrov and his North Korean opposite number are due to continue until Wednesday.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Backstop
BRV, glad you're staying on top of this.
Thanks Backstop :D
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
South Korea Resumes Live-Fire Artillery Drills
VOA News 13 December 2010
[IMG]http://media.voanews.com/images/480*320/AP_South_Korea_Koreas_Clash_13Dec2010_480.jpg[/IMG] Photo: AP
Kim Kwang-hoon, left, a former North Korean soldier who defected to South Korea, explains North Korea's self-propelled artillery during a rally denouncing North Korea's Nov. 23 bombardment on South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong, Seoul, 13 Dec. 2010
South Korean forces are embarking on a second week of live-fire drills around the nation's coasts, disregarding a warning from North Korea that the exercises could spark a nuclear war.
South Korea is also planning civil defense drills to prepare its people for the possibility of hostilities with the North. A former U.S. intelligence chief said in an interview Sunday that he expects any further provocation from the North to spark limited military clashes.
On the diplomatic front, a U.S. military delegation was in Seoul for talks Monday, while China continues to press for emergency talks between North Korea and other regional powers.
The live-fire drills are set to run Monday through Friday at 27 sites including 15 on the Yellow Sea coast where a North Korean artillery attack killed four South Koreans last month.
North Korea denounced the artillery exercises, saying they were "bringing the dark clouds of a nuclear war" to the Korean peninsula. But South Korean officials said none of the drills would take place near the contested maritime border between the two Koreas.
The South also urged citizens to pay closer than usual attention to a nationwide civil defense drill set for Wednesday afternoon. Such drills are conducted monthly, but officials said they are seeking special cooperation in light of the increased threat of hostilities.
The French news agency Agence France Presse said the drill will focus on directing citizens to the nation's thousands of underground shelters. It said about 12 jet fighters will simulate air strikes overhead.
Former U.S. intelligence chief Dennis Blair, who just completed a visit to South Korea, said in an interview that he expects clashes to break out between the two Koreas. But he said on U.S. television that he believes the fighting will be contained because North Korea knows it would lose an all-out war.
In Beijing, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Sunday that China will be patient in pressing for six-way talks with North Korea to ease tensions on the peninsula. The United States, South Korea and Japan, which met in Washington last week, have been reluctant to sit down with China, Russia and North Korea until Pyongyang shows greater evidence of its sincerity.
Michael Schiffer, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense, reiterated the United States' commitment to South Korea's security following a one-day meeting Monday in Seoul.
Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is scheduled to arrive in Pyongyang for a private visit beginning Tuesday. Richardson is currently governor of the U.S. state of New Mexico.
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010
Patriot batteries to be expanded
Kyodo News
Under new defense policy guidelines covering the five years from April 2011, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor missiles will be deployed at air bases nationwide to counter the North Korean ballistic missile threat, officials said.
A draft appendix to the guidelines, which are to be adopted this month and possibly as early as this week, also stipulates equipping all six Aegis destroyers with Standard Missile-3 interceptors while cutting tanks and artillery by about 200 each to 400, the government and Self-Defense Forces officials said.
Along with a plan to increase the number of submarines from 16 to 22 for enhanced vigilance around the Nansei chain of islands in the southwest centering on Okinawa, the planned defense posture is apparently aimed at dealing with North Korea and deterring China.
The move comes amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula following North Korea's shelling of on a South Korean island last month as well as China's rapid military buildup and increasing naval activity.
The PAC-3 missile system, designed to shoot down an incoming missile from the ground moments before reaching its target, will be deployed by all six Air Self-Defense Force air-defense missile groups from three at present, the officials said.
The three groups that currently have the system are at the Iruma base in Saitama Prefecture covering the Tokyo metropolitan area, the Kasuga base in Fukuoka Prefecture responsible for security in Kyushu and the Gifu base aimed at defending Nagoya and Osaka.
The other ASDF bases — in Chitose, Hokkaido; Misawa, Aomori Prefecture; and Naha, Okinawa Prefecture — are currently equipped with PAC-2 missiles designed to shoot down enemy aircraft.
Under the fiscal 2011 budget, the government is eyeing transferring some PAC-3 missiles to Chitose and Misawa in the north from their current bases while introducing new PAC-3s to cover Naha.
Four of the Maritime Self-Defense Force's six Aegis destroyers are equipped at present with SM-3 interceptors designed to knock out an enemy missile before it enters the Earth's atmosphere.
Defense officials say the increase in submarines is needed because no SDF units are deployed west of Miyako Island near Taiwan and China, making the area a defense "vacuum."
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
North Korean motives on the line
By Sunny Lee
AsiaTimes Online
December 14, 2010
BEIJING - "The next Korean War will come from the NLL." This is a new mantra among Korea watchers. The NLL - Northern Limit Line - is the inter-Korean maritime border in place since the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The latest incident of North Korea's shelling on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which spiked tension on the Korean Peninsula to the highest level since the war, occurred in the disputed sea border.
The sinking of the Cheonan, an 88-meter South Korean corvette, in March in which 46 South Korean sailors died, also took place near the NLL. And waters near Yeonpyeong were also the site of major naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and 2009, along with other small-scale skirmishes that mostly went unreported.
As a flashpoint for instability on the Korean Peninsula, especially at a time when some analysts fear miscalculations on either side might swiftly lead to full-scale war, interest in the NLL is intensifying.
Drawn at the close of the Korean War in 1953 by United Nations forces led by the United States, the inter-Korean maritime border demarcated the sea waters of inter-Korean territory around Yeonpyeong Island, 80 kilometers from the South Korean port of Incheon but just 11 kilometers from the North Korean mainland. Pyongyang all along has not recognized the sea border since it was established without its consent.
The area also happens to be very lucrative crab fishing grounds often entered by North Korean fishing boats escorted by navy patrol boats. Tension often escalates when they are reluctant to leave after being warned by South Korea navy vessels. Some of the previous deadly clashes happened in this fashion.
"This is a major source of inter-Korean tensions since 1953. I think something has to be done about it," said John Park, senior research associate for Northeast Asia at the United States Institute of Peace.
The latest tragic Yeonpyeong clash resulted in four South Korean deaths, including two civilians. The international community condemned the North's attack, yet North Korea has all along claimed it was triggered by the South. The North has repeated the claim through various government mouthpieces, from the Korean People's Army (November 23), the Foreign Ministry (November 23), the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (November 26), and the Korean Central News Agency (November 27).
Just last week, the North's media claimed: "NLL is a tinderbox [for clashes], engineered by the US to start a second Korean war."
Given the explosive nature of the matter, the previous two governments in South Korea under presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, who pursued a policy of engagement and reconciliation with North Korea, tried to deal with it. Observers note the effort was halted with the election of the conservative-leaning hardline President Lee Myung-bak in 2008.
Since the Cheonan incident, joint South Korean-US military drills, including near the disputed sea border, have provoked an angry reaction from North Korea. The Yeonpyeong artillery shelling took place as South Korea was carrying out drills in the region.
Han Park, director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues at the University of Georgia, said that while North Korea's firing of artillery killing civilians cannot be justified, its claim that South Korea triggered the attack deserves close attention and the North Korean artillery attack was a display of its claim sovereignty.
"North Koreans from day one of the Yeonpyeong incident have been saying that they were ‘provoked' by South Korea,'' said Park. ''Here, we have to understand that what they were saying was that the area is disputed.
''Yeonpyeong Island is right in the disputed area. North Korea sent a couple of warnings, saying any kind of military maneuver or sending bullets into what they consider their territory would be considered military provocation. From the North Korean perspective, if they don't do anything, then that would mean they would simply be accepting it as South Korean territory."
Park, a long-time North Korea watcher with over 50 visits to North Korea, said the matter needed to be carefully examined to prevent similar incidents. "Some people think I am a North Korean sympathizer. I am not. I think we're dealing with facts here. What we have is a disputed set of facts. And if this is going to be a future source of conflict and future fighting, then we have to address the source of this problem."
China has a sympathetic attitude toward Pyongyang's efforts to keep its national boundary line. "The interpretation that it was South Korea who was conducting live fire drills in the area despite North Korean warnings has a wide currency among Chinese," said the United States Institute of Peace's John Park. "China's sympathy toward North Korea on this matter also feeds into the explanation of why China is not willing to put pressure on North Korea to the level that Washington and Seoul were expecting. That's a factor that has been overlooked in understanding China's reluctance to join the international community."
Room for miscalculation and miscommunication is another problem. On the day of the Yeonpyeong incident, after the North's initial shelling at 2:34 pm, South Korean air bombers were in the air at 2:38 pm waiting for orders. At 3:12 pm, North Korea launched a second round of shelling. That the North didn't shell a third time prevented a major clash. Citing a senior official at the presidential Blue House, South Korean media on Sunday revealed that Seoul was ready to launch airstrikes into North Korea if there had been a third round of North Korean shelling.
"It's true that our fighters were up and ready during the time of the North's attacks," the unnamed official, quoted by South Korea's Yonhap agency, said. With an apparent tinge of regret, the official said: "Actually, we should have made a stern strike [against North Korea] before the North's artillery got cold."
To prevent a major inter-Korean arms clash, analysts have called for the establishment of a regional monitoring arrangement. "If there is a warning or dispute on a particular incident, that should be communicated in a way that we as an international community or as a regional grouping can address those statements, rather than waiting for it to escalate," said John Park at the Institute of Peace.
In the meantime, analysts differ on what North Korea wanted to achieve through provocation this time. Some suspect it was more than just North Korea enforcing its territorial sovereignty.
Andrei Lankov, a Russia-born expert on North Korea who teaches at South Korea's Kookmin University, believes it was North Korea's heightened posture to seek the attention of the US. "Their message is the same. We are here, We are dangerous and unpredictable. We cannot be ignored. We are becoming even more dangerous every year, so it is better for you to pay attention to us," said Lankov.
John Park at the Institute of Peace takes a different view. "An explanation quite common is that any behavior of North Korea is an attempt to get the US and South Korea back to the negotiation table. I don't agree with that. There are certain North Korean measures and actions that are geared toward negotiation and their strategy of trying to get various parties back to the negotiation table in a situation favorable to North Korean interests. But when it comes to exchange of artillery fire, it is more about the turf. That is an age-old source of conflict, seen throughout the history of human conflict over disputed territory."
Hajime Izumi, a professor of international relations at Japan's University of Shizuoka, believes North Korea's ultimate goal of the NLL provocation is to seek a peace treaty with the US and South Korea. "North Korea takes the NLL very seriously. The solution is a peace agreement from the North's side. North Korea wants South Korea to take a peace agreement seriously too.
"But South Korea and the US are reluctant because they fear that after entering into a peace negotiation with the South, North Korea will likely demand the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea. It will open a Pandora's box with many security ramifications for US strategy in the region," said Izumi.
Gordon Flake, the executive director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and a long-time North Korea watcher, believes focusing on the NLL is missing the point. "In my mind, it's really not the NLL issue," he said.
"The NLL has been an area for disputes since the Korean War. It's only when North Korea chooses to use it for political purposes that it becomes an agenda. So, to say that the Yeonpyeong Island is a problem because of the NLL misses the point. This is the first time for Kim Jong-il to shell the island. It's not because of the NLL. It's because of the decision made in Pyongyang to proceed with that type of action. And I think it has more to do with domestic politics in Pyongyang than any change in North Korean views about the NLL itself," Flake said.
Citing intelligence sources, South Korea's largest-selling and conservative daily, Chosun Ilbo, said prior to the North's artillery shelling on Yeonpyeong that Kim Jong-il and his son Kim Jong-eun, the hair-apparent, visited a military base in the Hwanghae province, not far from Yeonpyeong.
"A lot of other intelligence suggests this was a pre-planned strike. North Korean artillery shelling didn't start until four hours after the South Korean artillery practice had been taken care of. This is not a reaction to the South Korean move. This is a premeditated move on North Korea's part. Obviously there is a dynamic in the inter-Koreans relationship that responds to exercises with exercises. But the real question is did they really intend to kill civilians? If so, that would be very disturbing," said Flake.
Regardless of what the North aimed to do with the shelling, Zhao Huji, a political scientist at the Central Party School in Beijing, an elite institution that educates Communist Party cadre, believes North Korea is increasingly likely to turn to military means as it will help sculpt the leadership image of Kim Jong-eun as a heroic military general and boost his legitimacy among the domestic audience. And for that matter, he is not very optimistic.
"We're dealing with a dead alley here," he said "It's a situation that is difficult to find a solution to. North Korea has a national policy which puts the military first, which means it's very prone to be hostile. It is more likely to be so, partly to justify Kim Jong-eun's succession."
Sunny Lee (sleethenational@gmail.com) is a Seoul-born columnist and journalist; he has degrees from the US and China.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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Re: North And South Korea On The Brink Of War, Russian Diplomat Warns
North Korean State Media Announces Preparation For All-Out War
Joe Weisenthal | Dec. 12, 2010, 9:02 PM | 3,896 |
http://static.businessinsider.com/im...m-jung-ill.jpgFrom the official media organ of the DPRK, word that the country is prepared for "all-out war" with its southern neighbor:
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Pyongyang, December 11 (KCNA) -- The war confab of the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean warmongers is, in fact, little short of a declaration of an all-out war aimed at the escalated skirmish, declared a spokesman for the National Peace Committee of Korea in a statement released on Saturday.
He went on to say:
The U.S. imperialists and the puppet warmongers held a meeting of the chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of south Korea and the U.S. in Seoul on December 8 at which they discussed a very dangerous war scenario calling on the puppet forces and the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces to mount a military attack on the DPRK under the pretext of "deterring provocation" of someone.
The U.S. imperialists openly approved the puppet forces′ plan to attack the DPRK by mobilizing all fighters and warships, etc. not bound to the existing "rules and regulations for battles," touting "their right to self-defence." They, at the same time, declared they would consider the proposal for supporting the puppet forces with "information about north Korea" and with "F-22 Raptors" advertised by them as the "most sophisticated fighters in the world" in case of a war between the north and the south of Korea.
This indicates that the U.S. is fully joining in the puppet forces′ moves for a war of aggression against the DPRK after throwing away the disguise of a hypocrite.
The puppet warmongers are behaving like mad dogs after facing resolute punishment by the Korean People′s Army for their reckless military provocations. They are going reckless, vociferating about "retaliation" and "punishment."
The U.S. is zealously egging the puppet forces on to kick up military hysteria, dispatching its military brasshat to Seoul, reinforcing its armed forces for aggression, escalating war exercises and rounding off its "plan for limited war."
It is as clear as a pikestaff that if the puppet army mobilizes all flying corps, warships and missiles for a war against the DPRK and the U.S. imperialists join them with latest military hardware involved, it will develop into an all-out war, not confined to a local war.
The above-said war confab made it clearer that the warship sinking case and the Yonphyong Island shelling incident cooked up by the puppet group and the U.S. imperialist warmongers were aimed at sparking off an all-out war.
It is ridiculous for the puppet group to talk about "right to self-defence" and the like as it is no more than war servants and colonial stooges of the U.S. Its outbursts are nothing but sheer sophism intended to cover up its military provocations and war moves.
The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to the phase of an all-out war due to the reckless provocations of the U.S. imperialists and the puppet warmongers.
The prevailing situation reminds one of the eve of the past Korean War when the U.S. imperialists instigated the puppet forces to launch invasion of the DPRK.
Should an all-out war break out again on this land, it will never confine to the boundary of the peninsula.
The army and people of the DPRK are ready for both escalated war and an all-out war.
They will deal merciless retaliatory blows at the provocateurs and aggressors and blow up their citadels and bases and thus honorably defend the dignity and security of the nation.
The warmongers of south Korea and the U.S. imperialists had better behave themselves, bearing in mind that their ignition of a dangerous war will bring them nothing but self-destruction. -0-
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/north...#ixzz181f4UHfN