By Kim Young-jin
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered troops to “make a powerful retaliatory strike” if South Korea breaches its borders, Pyongyang’s state media said Sunday, as Washington and Seoul prepared to hold joint military drills.
The official Korean Central News Agency said Kim issued the order during an inspection of frontline military units including the North Korean army’s 4th Corps in the southwestern part of the country, which was behind the deadly 2010 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.
The twenty-something leader, who is taking power following the death of his father Kim Jong-il in December, said the strike should be made “should the enemy intrude even 0.001 millimeter into the waters of the country where its sovereignty is exercised.” The order came as South Korean and U.S. troops gear up for their joint Key Resolve exercise, the annual computer simulated war games meant to ready the allies for potential North Korean provocations. Pyongyang has already threatened to wage a “sacred war” over the drills, saying they are preparations for an invasion.
Seoul and Washington insist the drills, which mobilize more than 200,000 troops, are defensive in nature.
Separately, the allies will launch joint air, ground and naval field training exercises called Foal Eagle starting Thursday.
The North routinely threatens war in retaliation to the military drill by the South. On Saturday, it accused Washington of stepping up war efforts, hinting that Pyongyang had the ability to strike the U.S. mainland.
“Nuclear weapons are not the monopoly of the United States.
We have war means more powerful than the U.S. nukes and ultra-modern striking equipment which no one has ever possessed,” it said.
The North has pursued a nuclear weapons program in defiance of international pressure, conducting two nuclear tests. But many believe it is not yet able to mount nuclear warheads onto intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Some observers said the North’ spate of rhetoric seemed aimed at ratcheting up pressure to engage Pyongyang through the stalled six-party denuclearization talks.
Also Saturday, Washington’s point man on the North said progress had been made between the sides during high-level bilateral talks last week in Beijing, but that resumption of the negotiations was a “long way” off.
After two days of talks with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, in Beijing, Glyn Davies said in Seoul that while it was encouraging that the new North Korean leadership appeared willing to engage, Pyongyang must still warm ties with the South in order for a diplomatic breakthrough.
The high-level talks were seen as a litmus test for the North’s attitude over its weapons program under Kim Jong-un. Observers said the rhetoric following the talks suggested the new leadership will continue to hold tightly to its program while seeking to resume the lucrative negotiations.
The two sides struck a deal just prior to the late Kim’s death under which the North agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment in return for 240,000 tons of nutritional assistance, which would have paved the way for resumption of the multilateral forum.
Davies told reporters that the North Korean side raised the issue of food aid during the Beijing talks and Washington would make a decision “based on need, based on availability of assistance it provides.” He added there was “no direct linkage between the nuclear issue and the issue of nutritional assistance.” The six-party framework has been defunct since 2009 when the North walked away in response to sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests.