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North Korea says the region is on the brink of a nuclear war in the wake of United Nations sanctions imposed for its February nuclear test and a series of joint US and South Korean military drills that have included a rare US show of aerial power.
The North, whose economy is smaller than it was 20 years ago, appeared to move yesterday to addressing its pressing need for investment by appointing a reformer to the country’s ceremonial prime minister’s job.
North Korea had said on Saturday it was entering a “state of war” with South Korea in response to what it termed the “hostile” military drills being staged in the South. But there have been no signs of unusual activity in the North’s military to suggest an imminent aggression, a South Korean defence ministry official said last week.
“If there is any provocation against South Korea and its people, there should be a strong response in initial combat without any political considerations,” President Park Geun-hye told the defence minister and senior officials at a meeting yesterday.
The South has changed its rules of engagement to allow local units to respond immediately to attacks, rather than waiting for permission from Seoul.
Stung by criticism that its response to the shelling of a South Korean island in 2010 was tardy and weak, Seoul has also threatened to target North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and to destroy statues of the ruling Kim dynasty in the event of any new attack, a plan that has outraged Pyongyang.
Seoul and its ally the United States played down Saturday’s statement from the official KCNA news agency as the latest in a stream of tough talk from Pyongyang.
North Korea stepped up its rhetoric in early March, when US and South Korean forces began annual military drills that involved the flights of US B-2 stealth bombers in a practice run, prompting the North to puts its missile units on standby to fire at US military bases in the South and in the Pacific.
The United States also deployed F-22 stealth fighter jets on Sunday to take part in the drills. The F-22s were deployed in South Korea before, in 2010.
On its part, North Korea has cancelled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all hot-lines with US forces, the United Nations and South Korea.
Park’s intervention came on the heels of a meeting of the North’s ruling Workers Party Central Committee where leader Kim Jong-un rejected the notion that Pyongyang was going to use its nuclear arms development as a bargaining chip.
“The nuclear weapons of Songun Korea are not goods for getting US dollars and they are … (not) to be put on the table of negotiations aimed at forcing the (North) to disarm itself,” KCNA news agency quoted him as saying.
At the meeting, Kim appointed a handful of personal confidants to the party’s politburo, further consolidating his grip on power in the second full year of his reign.
The most surprising appointment came yesterday as former prime minister Pak Pong-ju was re-appointed as premier.
Pak is viewed as a key ally of Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle and also a protege of Kim’s aunt and is viewed as a pawn in a power game that has seen Jang and his wife re-assert power over military leaders.
Analysts said the move would not likely change Pyongyang’s approach to a confrontation that appears to have dragged the two Koreas closer to war. — Reuters.
Online Reporter