[Iran Press] The South Korean Defense Ministry has threatened to retaliate immediately, should the North Korean military fire across the disputed sea border.What's this? The vitriol's flowing the other way?
South Korea's Defense Minister Kim Tae-Young said on Tuesday that a new military directive had been issued, ordering armed forces to launch a powerful counter-attack if the North's shells land south of Seoul's maritime border.
"If North Korea fires artillery rounds south of the NLL (Northern Limit Line), we will respond by firing toward north of the NLL," Kim said, adding that Seoul will give advanced warnings to the North.
"The order was in line with new combat policy for South Korean troops guarding the volatile sea border," the South Korean minister told a parliamentary defense committee.
The South Korean Defense Ministry also announced that it had detected a massive buildup of troops and military equipment near the North's capital, Pyongyang.
"The massive deployment of troops could be designed to show their military power at home and abroad, or for security," a ministry spokesman told AFP on Tuesday.
Seoul has also linked the deployment to upcoming political events in Pyongyang.
Tension has intensified on the Korean peninsula since the sinking of a South Korean warship earlier in March.
The South, which charges that the North torpedoed its warship, took a step further and held a major four-day military drill with Washington in the troubled region in response to the alleged attack.
Pyongyang, which denies any involvement in the sinking incident, said earlier that the drill posed "a great threat not only to the peace and security of the Korean peninsula but also to global peace and security."