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SEOUL: South Korea on Sunday reacted calmly to North
Korea’s threat to suspend all inter-Korean dialogue in protest
over remarks by Seoul’s top general.
In a first official reaction, the
South’s defense ministry said it had no plans to respond
immediately to the North’s message.
“The ministry will
decide—within two or three days—on whether it should send a
reply or not after scrutinizing North Koreans’ real intentions
through consultations with the unification ministry and other
agencies,” it said in a press statement.
The North on Saturday called on
South Korean new Joint Chiefs of Staff head Kim Tae Young to
apologize for his remarks that Seoul would strike North Korean
nuclear sites should Pyongyang attack it with atomic weapons.
The North’s Korean People’s
Army (KPA) also warned of a further slide in ties.
“If the South side does not
retract the outbursts calling for ‘preemptive attack’ nor
clarify its stand to apologize for them, the KPA will interpret this
as the stand of the South-side authorities to suspend all
inter-Korean dialogues and contacts,” it said.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula
have been rising recently.
The North on Thursday expelled
Seoul officials from a jointly run plant in Keasong, the most
important inter-Korean project and the most visible symbol of
reconciliation, just north of the Korean border.
The North also test-launched
short-range missiles off its west coast Friday.
The test-firing coincided with
Pyongyang warning that it could slow down work to disable its atomic
plants and the North Korean navy warning against South Korean
warships intruding into its “territorial waters” in the Yellow
Sea, which are claimed by both Koreas.
Bloody clashes involving warships
of the two rivals in 1999 and 2002 left dozens of casualties on both
sides.
At a parliament hearing
Wednesday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Kim, answering a
hypothetical question of how to react if the North developed small
nuclear weapons and attacked the South with them, said the South
should find the North’s nuclear sites and strike them with
precision weapons.
The North’s military on
Saturday denounced Kim’s remarks as “the gravest challenge
ever” to inter-Korean ties and “a reckless provocation little
short of a war declaration” against Pyongyang.
General Kim’s office on
Thursday issued a statement, saying his remarks contained no
reference to “preemptive” strikes.
--AFP
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