DPRK vows to scrap peace pact with South Korea

frenzied pitch in recent days, fuelling concerns of a border clash with both North and South planning major military exercises next week.
It has even threatened a “pre-emptive nuclear attack” against the United States and South Korea – a notion dismissed as bluster by analysts, but not without dangerous, underlying intent.
North Korea “abrogates all agreements on non-aggression reached between the North and the South”, the state-run Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) said yesterday.
The DPRK said the pacts would be voided as of Monday, the same day that Pyongyang has vowed to rip up the 1953 armistice agreement that ended Korean War hostilities.
It also announced the immediate severing of a North-South hotline installed in 1971.
State television, meanwhile, showed North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un laying preparations for “all-out war” as he visited a frontline military unit involved in the shelling of a South Korean island in 2010.
Footage of the visit showed him being greeted by chanting troops who were held back as they surged towards him. Their families brought children to meet the leader, with one woman encouraging her daughter forward for a hug.
South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-Hye, who was sworn in less than two weeks ago, said the situation had become “very grave” but vowed to “deal strongly” with any provocation from the North.
The DPRK statement came hours after the UN Security Council beefed up existing sanctions on the communist state in response to its February 12 nuclear test.
The resolution adopted by the 15-member Council tightened restrictions on North Korea’s financial dealings, notably its suspect “bulk cash” transfers.
The new sanctions will “bite hard”, said the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice. “They increase North Korea’s isolation and raise the cost to North Korea’s leaders of defying the international community.”
Germany’s foreign minister said he wanted his EU counterparts to consider further measures against North Korea beyond UN sanctions, while France urged Pyongyang to show restraint.
In Beijing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying urged “relevant parties to exercise calm and restraint, and avoid actions that might further escalate tensions,” describing the situation as “highly complex and sensitive”.
Prior to the Security Council meeting, the North Korean foreign ministry had threatened a “pre-emptive nuclear attack” against the US and all other “aggressors”. – AFP.