By Jung Sung-ki
South Korea will independently invoke the right of self-defense should North Korea launch another attack on its territory, separate from the existing rules of engagement effectively controlled by the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC), the defense chief said Monday.
The remarks by Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin come as the South Korean Navy launched naval live-fire drills in waters off all three coasts of the Korean Peninsula. But live-fire exercises were not held in waters off the five islands near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the volatile sea border in the West Sea.
Minister Kim made the comment in response to the question of whether the South would respond with force against North Korean provocation, regardless of the rules of engagement based on the truce status on the Korean Peninsula.
The UNC, led by the commander of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), supervises the armistice agreement on the peninsula. The CFC commander has the wartime command authority.
“We’ll respond to the North’s preemptive attack by invoking the right of self-defense, and I’ve already given that order,” Kim told reporters. “We’ll continue counterattacks until the North surrenders. That’s the bottom line.”
Separately, the Ministry of National Defense is studying ways to relax the rules of engagement to enable tougher responses to provocation, he said.
The current rules, jointly governed by U.S. troops stationed in the South, are mainly focused on preventing a military skirmish with the North from escalating into a greater conflict.
“The principles for the rules of engagement are not applied to the right of self-defense,” he said.
As for concerns that South Korea’s tough retaliation may lead to an all-out war, Kim played down such a possibility, saying North Korea isn’t ready for a full-scale war because of its moribund economy and internal instability due to the ongoing power transfer from leader Kim Jong-il to his youngest son.