| Submit your comments on this article | |
| China-Japan-Koreas | |
| Norks whinge about improved SKor readiness in Yellow Sea | |
| 2015-06-08 | |
| SEOUL -- North Korea lashed out at South Korea's top military officer Saturday for making what it called "provocative" remarks during his visit to the inter-Korean maritime border in the Yellow Sea, saying its attack on a border island "not a past thing." On Thursday, Adm. Choi Yun-hee, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited a Marine Corps unit on South Korea's westernmost island of Yeonpyeong in the Yellow Sea, during which he called for a watertight combat readiness against North Korea. He also ordered his troops deployed there to retaliate against any North Korean military provocations without hesitation. In 2010, North Korea launched an artillery attack on the island, killing two soldiers and two civilians. The area has long been an inter-Korean powder keg, where the navies of the two Koreas fought bloody battles in 1999, 2002, and 2009, resulting in dozens of casualties on both sides. "(Choi's words) reveal that the root of the evil that threatens the regional peace and stability is the United States and the Park Geun-hye group," the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by its Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Park is the South Korean president. The North's committee, a party organization which handles inter-Korean affairs, also denounced South Korea for raising tensions on the volatile Peninsula by test-firing a new missile earlier this week that can cover virtually all parts of the North. "The inter-Korean relations are getting deteriorated and the situation on the Korean peninsula is inching close to the brink of a nuclear war" due to the U.S. and South Korea, the committee said, warning that the shelling attack on Yeonpyeong "is by no means a past thing." North Korea's missile technology is believed to be superior to that of South Korea.
| |
| Posted by:Steve White |