By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
South Korea will conduct swift precision-guided attacks on nuclear facilities in North Korea in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula, a top military commander here said Thursday.
"North Korea's nuclear weaponry would pose the greatest threat to South Korea in time of war," Gen. Lee Sang-eui, nominee for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), said during a National Assembly confirmation hearing.
"We'll mobilize all means available to precisely and swiftly strike major targets concerned," he said, adding that the military has a list of North Korean key targets.
He said North Korea is believed to have up to 40kg of plutonium, enough to produce at least six nuclear bombs.
South Korea and the United States have yet to formally recognize North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, even though the communist regime has conducted two rounds of underground atomic explosions, in 2006 and May this year.
The North said earlier this year that it would weaponize all new plutonium it extracts from its facilities, vowing to use nuclear bombs in retaliatory attacks against outside foes.
In a pre-hearing statement, Lee also expressed hope that South Korea will step up its efforts to compete with North Korea in the development of missile technology.
South Korea is under a voluntary ban on the development of missiles exceeding a range of 300km and a throw-weight of 500kg.
South Korea has been under increasing domestic pressure to exit the ban since North Korea's April launch of a long-range rocket that could be converted into a ballistic missile.
"North Korea is threatening us with missiles" of various ranges, the statement said.
"We, too, need to possess further improved missile capabilities," he said, expressing willingness to look into "long-term measures to reinforce" them.
The two Koreas remain technically at war, as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a ceasefire instead of a peace treaty.