The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) vowed on Monday to take strict retaliatory measures over any slight offensives from the United States, Japan and South Korea.
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Members of the U.S. Marine Corps Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team Pacific (FASTPAC) take part in a U.S. naval base defence drill in Jinhae, about 410 km (250 miles) southeast of Seoul, March 9, 2009. [Xinhuanet.com] |
The DPRK has taken a tough stand since tension on the Korean Peninsula further heightened early this year.
Various sectors from the DPRK have stood up to play tough, such as the supreme command of the Korean People's Army (KPA), the general staff of the KPA, and the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea. They made strong-worded statements one after another on inter-Korean issues and U.S.-South Korea joint military drills.
They declared an "all-out confrontation" with South Korea, scrapping all inter-Korean peace accords, and warned South Korean passenger planes not to fly over or near the DPRK airspace. Besides, the supreme command has ordered its troops to be ready for a war against the U.S. and South Korea.
Besides the tough rhetoric, the DPRK has cut off the north-south military communications on borders, breaking the only remaining inter-Korean communication channel.
Tension on the peninsula was not built overnight, and Pyongyang blamed the worsening relations on the anti-DPRK policy adopted by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
The two Koreas have made unprecedented strides toward reconciliation, holding the first summit in 2000 and reconnecting transportation links across their heavily armed frontier. But the improving relations took a turn for the worse since conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in February last year.
Lee pledged to get tough with Pyongyang, and ended unconditional aids to the DPRK and classified it as a "main threat."
All these led the DPRK to rule out any possibility to talk with the South Korean government and responded by "supreme hard measures."
The DPRK's plan to launch a satellite stoked the tensions on the peninsula too. The DPRK said that as a sovereignty state, it has the right to test fire a satellite as part of peaceful space program.
But the U.S. and South Korea alleged that it was a long-range missile launch, which violates the United Nation Resolution 1718 and they would intercept the missile if it posed a threat.
A large-scale military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea staged on Monday amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula. The DPRK had asked the two to stop the drills through different channels, and their decision to proceed the exercises enraged the DPRK, which claimed the war games were meant to be a war declaration.
Analysts said Pyongyang may adopt the tough stand to press the (U.S. President Barack) Obama administration to clarify its policy toward the DPRK. The DPRK has warned if the U.S. went ahead with the military games, it will prove that "the promise made by the new U.S. administration that it would seek a negotiated settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue is no more than flamboyant rhetoric," and the DPRK army will "take strong countermeasures to cope with the policy taken by the new U.S. administration."
The U.S.-South Korea military drills started on Monday and the date of DPRK's satellite launch was also drawing near. With tensions mounting increasingly high, it would be premature to rule out the possibility of conflicts, analysts said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2009)