South Korean President Park Geun-hye
South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye has ordered the military to boost border security, amid regional tensions with North Korea.
“Park ordered the defense minister and other security-related ministers to make more efforts to keep an airtight security posture against provocations at a time North Korea is conducting a flurry of propaganda offensives,” Yonhap news agency quoted Park’s top press secretary Lee Jung-hyun as saying on Saturday.
On January 16, North Korea offered for an end to “all acts of provoking and slandering” from January 30.
Pyongyang called for steps to alleviate tensions around the disputed Yellow Sea border, which has seen clashes in the past.
The North Korean government also renewed calls for Seoul to abandon its planned joint Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military drills with the United States, which are scheduled to start late February.
South Korea has rejected the call to cancel the annual large-scale military exercises, with the country’s defense ministry saying that the drills would go ahead as planned.
“If North Korea commits military provocations by taking advantage of these routine exercises... the military will retaliate severely and firmly,” said South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok.
On January 15, the North Korean state body managing inter-Korean affairs, the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK), said that the joint military exercises would drive the Korean Peninsula “into catastrophe.”
The Korean Peninsula has been locked in a cycle of military rhetoric over the past few months.
South Korea has staged a series of military exercises separately or jointly with the US since December 2012, when Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket which it said put a satellite into orbit.
MR/HSN
Post a Comment