North Korea renews nuclear threats against South Korea, U.S.

21 Octobre 2013 , Rédigé par ileridefense Publié dans #Asie

Through the summer, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un remained quiet, but with fall coming, he is reverting to threatening South Korea and the United States.

Pyongyang’s highest military policymaking body, the National Defense Commission [NDC] chaired by Kim, issued a new threat of “all-out war.” The commission demanded that the U.S. stop its military drills with allies South Korea and Japan in a statement published by the official Korean Central News Agency [KCNA] on Oct. 12.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. government is willing to have a peaceful relationship with North Korea, but only if North Korea gets rid of nuclear weapons and complies with international demands.

A day after the NDC statement threatening war, Agence France-Presse [AFP] described it as “a thinly veiled threat to strike the U.S.”

The statement followed an escalation in rhetoric from the Pyongyang regime.

“After a few months of efforts at engagement go nowhere, Pyongyang is changing its tone from conciliatory to aggressive,” South Korea’s Hankyoreh newspaper reported on Oct. 9.

Analyzing the pattern of statements coming out of Pyongyang, Hankyoreh concluded, “North Korea seems to have set aside its attempts to engage in dialogue and to be shifting into confrontation mode.

“After the stand-off that lasted from March to May, Pyongyang changed its approach and tried talks from June through September. But once it failed to gain any ground through the talks, it appears to be turning once again to the strategy of increasing tension,” the newspaper stated.

The NDC demanded, through a statement, that the U.S. end what it claimed was a policy of hostility against Pyongyang on both the Korean peninsula and what it called the “U.S. Mainland.”

“[The United States] must bear it in mind that reckless provocative acts would meet our retaliatory strikes and lead to an all-out war of justice for a final showdown with the United States,” KCNA quoted a NDC spokesman.

“We emphasize again that the United States must withdraw various measures aimed to isolate and strangulate us. Dependent upon this are ... peace and security, not only on the Korean peninsula but the U.S. mainland as well,” the news agency said.

Simultaneous with the NDC statement, North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper published an editorial protesting the ongoing U.S.-South Korean naval exercises in the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.

North Korea Leadership Watch reported the editorial claimed North Korea was already “possessed of powerful nuclear deterrence capable of foiling the enemies’ moves for a nuclear war at a strike and blowing up their strongholds.”

“If the U.S. and South Korean bellicose forces ignite a nuclear war despite the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea]’s repeated warnings, it will mobilize all its war deterrents and deal fatal blows at the provocateurs and thus achieve lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula,” the Rodong Sinmun said.

The statements came during a three-day joint naval drill among Japan, South Korea and the U.S., which included the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington. The carrier entered the South Korean port of Busan, at the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, as far from North Korea as it is possible to be in South Korea on Oct. 11. That same day, the North Korean government attacked the exercises as “a military provocation” and vowed to “bury in the sea” the USS George Washington.

North Korea demands end of sanctions

The NDC’s Oct. 12 statement demanded an immediate end to U.S. economic sanctions on North Korea for its continued nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missile development programs and what it claimed were “constant nuclear blackmails” and war drills.

It described U.S. calls for North Korea to abandon its nuclear program as rejected as “intolerable contempt.”

It reiterated the old North Korea position but added that getting rid of such weapons should also include a total removal of U.S. nuclear threats.

The NDC statement was “North Korea’s first military mobilization order since March 26 when the Supreme Commander of the People’s Army announced an order to move into Combat Readiness Posture number 1,” The Hankyoreh reported. “While adopting an attitude of military confrontation, Pyongyang also indicated that it remains very interested in dialogue with the U.S.

“North Korea’s scathing criticism can be seen as conveying its disappointment and anger at the attitude the South has shown during the dialogue phase that started in June,” the newspaper added.

Paik Hak-soon, a senior researcher at South Korea’s Sejong Institute told The Hankyorehthat Kim believes North Korea made a series of significant concessions to South Korea in recent months but received no appreciation for them.

“The majority of inter-Korean agreements this year, including the minister-level talks, the reopening of the Kaesong Complex, and the reunions of the divided families, were made possible by North Korea yielding unilaterally,” he told the newspaper.

Writing in The Hankyoreh, Park Byong-su reached the same conclusion as the Heritage Foundation’s Cheng. “It appears likely that the international situation related to North Korea will enter a phase of tension and confrontation for the time being,” he wrote.

Tensions soared from December to May

In the six months from December 2012 through May 2013 tensions soared in Northeast Asia after North Korea carried out a successful satellite launch confirming its ability to construct its own intercontinental ballistic missile, and then in mid-February it successfully tested its third nuclear device, raising fears it had moved on from a bulky plutonium weapon to ones that could be made and delivered more easily from weapons-grade uranium.

In fact, South Korean government policymakers and intelligence analysts have concluded that the more moderate tone coming out of Pyongyang over the summer was just a cover for advancing serious plans to wage nuclear war against South Korea when the time was ripe.

Nam Jae-joon, the director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service [NIS] testified before a parliamentary committee in Seoul on Oct. 8 “that Kim Jong-un has been boasting that he could ‘reunify the Korean Peninsula within three years,” South Korea’s Chosun Ilbonewspaper reported.

In fact, South Korea had responded positively to apparent signs from North Korea in August that it was ready to improve relations.

“Seoul and Pyongyang agreed on Aug. 14 to reopen the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Park, which had been shut for more than four months, and President Park Geun-hye proposed the following day to resume reunions of separated families,” the Chosun Ilbo said.

North Korea restarts reactor

However, the newspaper pointed out the double standards and contradictions in North Korea’s position. “The North agreed to the reunions and went even further by proposing inter-Korean talks at the North’s scenic resort of Mount Kumgang. But at the same time it was restarting a reactor that had been idle since 2007, when it was closed under an agreement reached in six-party talks,” it said.

“The reactor was created solely for the purpose of producing nuclear weapons,” the newspaper said. “With it, the North had since the early 1990s produced plutonium for the nuclear weapons it tested in 2006 and 2009, and the decision to restart it signals that it wants to conduct another test. This marks only the latest agreement from the six-party talks that Pyongyang has scrapped.”

President Park raised the issue of the continued operation of the Yongbyon reactor with Chinese President Xi Jinping when they met on Oct. 7 on the sidelines of the three-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Bali, Indonesia.

Xi assured Park “that Beijing firmly opposes North Korea's nuclear program and additional nuclear tests. China has also been trying to persuade the U.S. to reopen the six-party talks,” AFP reported.

However, Park Byong-su pointed out in his analysis, such talks “would be pointless. If they resume now, North Korea will again use the Yongbyon reactor as a bargaining chip to exact concessions, and again threaten to conduct another nuclear test if things do not go as it wishes. That is why South Korea and the U.S. have refused to return to the talks unless North Korea first lives up to its previous obligations.

“China’s sincerity would be in serious doubt if it has been calling for the six-party talks to resume knowing that North Korea restarted the reactor.”

He concluded that “Beijing should focus its efforts on getting North Korea to stop the reactor. Only then can there be any prospect of resuming the talks.”

President Park repeated her public warning about Pyongyang’s nuclear program while in Jakarta on Oct. 5. “North Korea’s nuclear weapons development poses a serious threat to peace and stability in the region, including the Korean peninsula. … We cannot accept North Korea as a nuclear state,” she said.

By Martin Sieff

Asia Pacific Defense Forum

2013/10/17

South Korean tanks and heavy artillery participate in an Oct. 1 ceremony in downtown Seoul marking the 65th anniversary of South Korea’s Armed Forces. The celebration occurred just days before North Korean leader Kim Jong-un issued a new threat of war against his neighbor to the south and the United States. [AFP]

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