North Korean nuclear crisis

[Ash]

South Korea military says ready to strike back if North attacks

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's military said on Wednesday it was fully prepared to strike back at the North if its neighbour uses military force, a day after Pyongyang threatened to scrap the armistice agreement ending the 1950-53 Korean War.

"If North Korea undertakes provocation and threatens the lives and safety of our people, we make it clear that we have all preparations in place for a strong and decisive punishment not only against the source of the aggression and its support forces but also the commanding element," a major general of the South Korean military told a press conference.

 

[Ash]

Re: South Korea military says ready to strike back if North attacks

South Korea faces the same problems the India faces with respect to a nuclear armed neighbour, yet their warnings of retaliatory attacks seem more convincing than India's.

 

[SajeevJino]

Re: North Korea warns US to cancel South Korea drills

North Korea Threatens to Attack U.S. With 'Lighter and Smaller Nukes'​

North Korea said on Tuesday that it would cut off a hot line with the United States military in South Korea, calling the truce that stopped the Korean War in 1953 null and void and threatening to strike the United States with "lighter and smaller nukes."


North Korea had many times said it was nullifying the Korean War Armistice that stopped, but did not officially end, the three-year war. When it wanted to raise tensions in the past, it had also cut off, and later restored, the military hot line that the American-led United Nations Command maintained with North Korea through the truce village of Panmunjom north of the South Korean capital, Seoul, to help avoid armed conflicts on the divided peninsula.

North Korea's latest threats came as the United Nations Security Council was about to consider a new sanctions resolution, and five days after the United States and South Korea began their annual joint military exercises. North Korea has always denounced such drills as rehearsals for invasion, and its military started its own drills, with its leader Kim Jong-un visiting military units and its government exhorting the North Koreans to stay on a war footing.

"As we have already declared, we will take second and third countermeasures of greater intensity against the reckless hostilities of the United States and all the other enemies," the supreme command of the North's Korean People's Army said in a statement carried by the country's state-run Korean Central News Agency. "They had better heed our warning."

North Korea has also vowed to take unspecified retaliatory steps if the Security Council imposed more sanctions against the country for its third nuclear test on Feb. 12, and its latest warning amplified on such threats.

"Now that the U.S. imperialists seek to attack the DPRK with nuclear weapons, it will counter them with diversified precision nuclear strike means of Korean style," the North Korean statement said, using the acronym of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "The army and people of the DPRK have everything including lighter and smaller nukes unlike what they had in the past."

When it announced its third nuclear test last month, North Korea said it had tested a "miniaturized and lighter" atomic bomb that could theoretically be used atop missiles, although South Korean and American officials said North Korea would need much more time to reach such a goal.

North Korea also said its nuclear arsenal had become "diversified" — a comment some analysts called an indication that North Korea had begun building uranium-fueled bombs in addition to its limited stockpile of plutonium weapons.

Still, its threats to attack the United States with nuclear weapons are still seen by diplomats and North Korean experts largely as propagandistic bluster.

The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war because the conflict stopped without a peace treaty.

The United States, which fought on South Korea's side during the war, still keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea.

North Korea has long sought to undermine the armistice to create tensions and force the United States to negotiate a peace treaty with it. Washington and Seoul suspect that North Korea would use such peace talks with the United States to sideline South Korea and try to negotiate the withdrawal of American troops from the South.

When the Security Council adopted the last resolution to punish North Korea for its Dec. 12 launching of a long-range rocket, North Korea said there would be no more talks on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula but it was open to talks on "guaranteeing peace and stability on the peninsula."

In 1994, calling for a peace treaty to replace the truce, North Korea unilaterally shut down the Korean War Armistice Commission at Panmunjom, which was established to help enforce the truce. The North has since stationed a representative of its military as its contact point at the border village.

On Tuesday, North Korea also said its representative, a North Korean army general, will suspend his duty.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/world/asia/north-korea-threatens-to-attack-us-with-lighter-and-smaller-nukes.html?_r=1&

 

[SajeevJino]

North Korea vows to cancel Korean War ceasefire​

North Korea vowed Tuesday to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War, citing a U.S.-led push for punishing United Nations sanctions over its recent nuclear test and ongoing U.S.-South Korean joint military drills

Without elaborating, the Korean People's Army Supreme Command warned of "surgical strikes" meant to unify the divided Korean Peninsula and of an indigenous, "precision nuclear striking tool." The statement came amid reports that Washington and North Korean ally Beijing have approved a draft of a UN Security Council resolution calling for sanctions in response to North Korea's Feb. 12 nuclear test. The draft is expected to be circulated at the UN this week.

Heated military rhetoric is common from North Korea when tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula and during U.S.-South Korean war games, but this latest statement is unusually specific. It threatens to block a communications line between North Korea and the United States at the border village separating the two Koreas, and to nullify the 60-year-old Korean War armistice agreement on March 11, when two weeks of U.S.-South Korean military drills will draw 10,000 South Korean and 3,500 U.S. forces. An earlier round of drills between the allies began earlier this month.

Pyongyang's recent nuclear test and rocket launches, and the subsequent call for U.N. punishment, have increased already high animosity between the North and Washington and Seoul.

The United States and others worry that North Korea's third nuclear test takes it a big step closer toward its goal of having nuclear-armed missiles that can reach America, and condemn its nuclear and missile efforts as threats to regional security and a drain on the resources that could go to North Korea's largely destitute people.

North Korea says its nuclear program is a response to U.S. hostility that dates back to the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war.

Even amid the tension, however, North Korea has welcomed high-profile American visitors, including former basketball star Dennis Rodman, known for his piercings and tattoos as much as his Hall of Fame career with the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls.

Rodman met the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, called him an "awesome guy" and said Kim wanted President Barack Obama to call him. The trip was criticized for giving the authoritarian leader a propaganda boost, but Rodman suggested "basketball diplomacy" could warm relations. Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a four-day trip in January, but did not meet Kim.

North Korean propaganda regularly cites decades-old, Cold War-era American threats as the reason for its nuclear efforts and holds that the North remains at risk of an unprovoked nuclear attack. Washington and others say brinksmanship is the North's true motive for the nuclear push.

The North's statement called U.S.-South Korean military drills a "dangerous nuclear war targeted at us."

"We aim to launch surgical strikes at any time and any target without being bounded by the armistice accord and advance our long-cherished wish for national unification," the statement said.


North Korea vows to cancel Korean War ceasefire - World - CBC News

 

[SajeevJino]

Re: North Korea Confirms It Conducted 3rd Nuclear Test

UN bans racing cars for N. Korea, but no stopping the bomb​

The UN Security Council will ban the export of racing cars to North Korea on Thursday and launch an international hunt for its diplomats carrying suitcases of cash.But no-one expects Pyongyang to halt its campaign of nuclear provocation.


Following an agreement between the United States and China, the 15-member council will put North Korea under one of the toughest sanctions regimes ever ordered as a punishment for its February 12 nuclear bomb test.

But the hot-tempered North Korean government gave its response before details of the proposed sanctions were even released -- threatening to pull out of the armistice that halted the 1950 to 1953 Korean War.

Despite the sanctions, the world must brace for "a lot more saber rattling," said Philip Yun, a veteran North Korea watcher and executive director of the Ploughshares Fund, a US-based foundation rpush for an end to nuclear weapons.

The sanctions seek "pressure points" to further isolate North Korea, cut off the supply of luxuries to its leaders and hinder efforts to secure money and technology for nuclear bombs and long-range rockets, according to diplomats.

The sanctions resolution specifically names jewelry, yachts, racing cars and other high class automobiles as luxury items that must not be sent to North Korea, said one UN diplomat.

Luxury items were banned after the North's first nuclear test in 2006. But member states were left to make their own decision what constituted "luxury."

An Austrian businessman was caught in 2009 trying to send multi-million dollar yachts to the North and S-class Mercedes are regularly seen on the streets of Pyongyang.

A diplomat said the measures "would get at the ruling elite who are living these rather lavish lifestyles while the rest of the country is impoverished."

The resolution adds three new individuals and two new firms to the list subject to a travel ban and assets freeze. It would also ban trade components that could be used for uranium-enrichment, the UN envoy said.

But special attention will now be paid to North Korean diplomats around the world as the resolution targets what the envoy called "whole new areas and target entire new types of illicit behaviour by North Korea."

UN members will now be under a "binding obligation" to halt "any financial transaction or any financial service that could contribute to North Korea's illicit" nuclear and missile programs and weapons sales.

The United States believes North Korea gets huge amounts of money from abroad through "bulk cash transfers".

"They are already subject to sanctions so they literally move money in suitcases full of cash," said the UN envoy.

The resolution calls on UN states to "exercise vigilance" about North Korea's diplomats.

"We know there have been diplomats out there cooking up deals, moving funds around and engaging in activities they shouldn't," said the UN envoy.

The resolution "will take the UN sanctions imposed on North Korea to the next level, breaking new ground and imposing significant new legal obligations," said US ambassador Susan Rice, who negotiated with China.

"This is likely to make North Korea very mad, but the council had to act and it does have China on board," said another senior UN diplomat.

Yun, at the Ploughshares Fund, said "it is going to be extremely difficult to prevent North Korea from doing what it wants to do."

He said it was no accident that Kim Jong-Un, still a newcomer to leadership, had allowed the nuclear blast with new governments in South Korea and Japan and President Barack Obama just starting a second term.

The North moved "to basically keep everybody off balance before anyone can get into place. This is kind of a test in itself of the governments' response."

The United States had to seek "robust" sanctions and China had no choice but to agree as it is a permanent Security Council member, said Yun.

But to have any impact on North Korea, the United States and China, which has traditionally shielded its ally, must agree a plan of action with South Korea and Japan, he said.

UN bans racing cars for N. Korea, but no stopping the bomb

 

[sesha_maruthi27]

North Korea threatens 'pre-emptive' nuclear strike against US

SEOUL: North Korea on Thursday vowed to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States, amplifying its threatening rhetoric hours ahead of a vote by UN diplomats on whether to level new sanctions against Pyongyang for its recent nuclear test.

An unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for "pre-emptive nuclear strikes on the headquarters of the aggressors" because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.

Although North Korea boasts of nuclear bombs and pre-emptive strikes, it is not thought to have mastered the ability to produce a warhead small enough to put on a missile capable of reaching the US. It is believed to have enough nuclear fuel, however, for a handful of crude nuclear devices.

Such inflammatory rhetoric is common from North Korea, but it has been coming regularly in recent days. North Korea is angry over the possible sanctions and over upcoming US-South Korean military drills.

The UN Security Council is set to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang in a fresh attempt to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, said the council will vote on the draft sanctions resolution on Thursday morning.

The resolution was drafted by the United States and China, North Korea's closest ally. The council's agreement to put the resolution to a vote just 48 hours later signaled that it would almost certainly have the support of all 15 council members.

The statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

It accused the US of leading efforts to slap sanctions on North Korea. The statement said the new sanctions would only advance the timing for North Korea to fulfill previous vows of taking "powerful second and third countermeasures" against its enemies. Those measures haven't been specifically elaborated on.

"We gravely warn that at a time when we cannot avoid a second Korean War, the UN Security Council, which served as the US puppet in 1950 and made Korean people harbor eternal grudges against it, must not commit the same crime again," it said.

North Korea in the statement demanded the UN Security Council immediately dismantle the American-led UN Command that's based in Seoul and move to end the state of war that exists on the Korean Peninsula, which continues six decades after fighting stopped because an armistice, not a peace treaty, ended the war.

North Korea threatens 'pre-emptive' nuclear strike against US - The Times of India

 

[rock127]

UN Security Council to impose fourth round of even tougher sanctions

UN Security Council to impose fourth round of even tougher sanctions

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council, ignoring threats from North Korea, is set to impose a fourth round of even tougher sanctions against Pyongyang in a fresh attempt to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, said the council will vote on the draft sanctions resolution Thursday morning. The resolution was drafted by and the United States and China, North Korea's closest ally.The success of a new round of sanctions could depend on enforcement by China, where most of the companies and banks that North Korea is believed to work with are based.

The council's agreement to put the resolution to a vote just 48 hours later signaled that it would almost certainly have the support of all 15 council members.In anticipation of the resolution's adoption, North Korea has threatened to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.

The United States and other nations worry that North Korea's third nuclear test pushes it closer to its goal of gaining nuclear-armed missiles that can reach the U.S. The international community has condemned the regime's nuclear and missile efforts as threats to regional security and a drain on the resources that could go to North Korea's largely destitute people.The draft resolution condemns the latest nuclear test "in the strongest terms" for violating and flagrantly disregarding council resolutions, bans further ballistic missile launches, nuclear tests "or any other provocation," and demands that North Korea return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It also condemns all of North Korea's ongoing nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment.

The Korean People's Army Supreme Command, citing the U.S.-led push for sanctions, threatened Tuesday to cancel the armistice agreement on March 11 because of ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills that began March 1. Without elaborating, the command also warned of "surgical strikes" meant to unify the divided Korean Peninsula and of an indigenous, "precision nuclear striking tool."

Such threats have become increasingly common from North Korea as tensions have escalated following last December's rocket launch and Pyongyang's third nuclear test on Feb. 12, in defiance of three council resolutions that bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology and from importing or exporting material for these programs.

U.S. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said the proposed resolution, to be voted on at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT), would impose some of the strongest sanctions ever ordered by the United Nations.The final version of the draft resolution, released Wednesday, identified three individuals, one corporation and one organization that would be added to the U.N. sanctions list if the measure is approved.The targets include top officials at a company that is the country's primary arms dealer and main exporter of ballistic missile-related equipment and a national organization responsible for research and development of missiles and probably nuclear weapons.


But the proposed resolution stresses the council's commitment "to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution" and urged a resumption of six-party talks with the aim of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula "in a peaceful manner." The proposed resolution would make it significantly harder for North Korea to move around the funds it needs to carry out its illicit programs and strengthen existing sanctions and the inspection of suspect cargo bound to and from the country. It would also ban countries from exporting specific luxury goods to the North including yachts, luxury automobiles, racing cars, and jewelry with semi-precious and precious stones and precious metals.

According to the draft, all countries would now be required to freeze financial transactions or services that could contribute to North Korea's nuclear or missile programs.To get around financial sanctions, North Koreans have been carrying around large suitcases filled with cash to move illicit funds. The draft resolution expresses concern that these bulk cash transfers may be used to evade sanctions. It clarifies that the freeze on financial transactions and services that could violate sanctions applies to all cash transfers as well as the cash couriers.

The proposed resolution also bans all countries from providing public financial support for trade deals, such as granting export credits, guarantees or insurance, if the assistance could contribute to the North's nuclear or missile programs.It includes what a senior diplomat called unprecedented new travel sanctions that would require countries to expel agents working for sanctioned North Korean companies.

The draft also requires states to inspect suspect cargo on their territory and prevent any vessel that refuses an inspection from entering their ports. And a new aviation measure calls on states to deny aircraft permission to take off, land or fly over their territory if illicit cargo is suspected to be aboard.

 

[sesha_maruthi27]

North Korea threatens USA with nuclear strike

North Korea threatens 'pre-emptive' nuclear strike against US

SEOUL: North Korea on Thursday vowed to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States, amplifying its threatening rhetoric hours ahead of a vote by UN diplomats on whether to level new sanctions against Pyongyang for its recent nuclear test.

An unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for "pre-emptive nuclear strikes on the headquarters of the aggressors" because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.

Although North Korea boasts of nuclear bombs and pre-emptive strikes, it is not thought to have mastered the ability to produce a warhead small enough to put on a missile capable of reaching the US. It is believed to have enough nuclear fuel, however, for a handful of crude nuclear devices.

Such inflammatory rhetoric is common from North Korea, but it has been coming regularly in recent days. North Korea is angry over the possible sanctions and over upcoming US-South Korean military drills.

The UN Security Council is set to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang in a fresh attempt to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, said the council will vote on the draft sanctions resolution on Thursday morning.

The resolution was drafted by the United States and China, North Korea's closest ally. The council's agreement to put the resolution to a vote just 48 hours later signaled that it would almost certainly have the support of all 15 council members.

The statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

It accused the US of leading efforts to slap sanctions on North Korea. The statement said the new sanctions would only advance the timing for North Korea to fulfill previous vows of taking "powerful second and third countermeasures" against its enemies. Those measures haven't been specifically elaborated on.

"We gravely warn that at a time when we cannot avoid a second Korean War, the UN Security Council, which served as the US puppet in 1950 and made Korean people harbor eternal grudges against it, must not commit the same crime again," it said.

North Korea in the statement demanded the UN Security Council immediately dismantle the American-led UN Command that's based in Seoul and move to end the state of war that exists on the Korean Peninsula, which continues six decades after fighting stopped because an armistice, not a peace treaty, ended the war.

North Korea threatens 'pre-emptive' nuclear strike against US - The Times of India

 

[LurkerBaba]

Re: North Korea warns of nuclear attack on USA

UNSC has added new sanctions

The United Nations Security Council approved a new regimen of sanctions on Thursday against North Korea for its underground nuclear test last month, imposing penalties on North Korean banking, travel and trade in a unanimous vote that reflected the country's increased international isolation.

The resolution, which was drafted by the United States and China, was passed 15-0 in a speedy vote hours after North Korea threatened for the first time to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States and South Korea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/w...arns-of-pre-emptive-nuclear-attack.html?_r=1&

 

[Blackwater]

Re: North Korea warns of nuclear attack on USA

that's why we should not give nukes to these to kids (Pak+NK),:cool2::cool2:

 

[Daredevil]

North Korea threatens US with nuclear strike; UN expands sanctions

WASHINGTON: The UN Security Council on Thursday voted unanimously for tough new sanctions against North Korea for its latest nuclear test, ignoring threats by the nutty nation to nuke the United States.

Universally regarded as a psychotic basket case, North Korea saw its closest patron China join hands with the US to draft a resolution aimed at telling Pyongyang that the international community condemns its ballistic missile and nuclear tests and its repeated violation of Security Council resolutions.

However, both Washington and Beijing remained quiet on Pakistan, the country partly responsible for North Korea's advances in nuclear weaponry in exchange for ballistic missile technology. Like North Korea, Pakistan too is seen as building a national narrative based on paranoia and conspiracy theories.

But the US is unwilling to confront it because of its perceived exigencies in Afghanistan and China prefers not to because of its usefulness against India and US.

On Wednesday, North Korea was at its bizarre best, threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the US because it is using its ''puppet'' South Korea to prepare for denuclearizing Pyongyang.

"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest," North Korea's foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official news agency.

Pyongyang's unnamed foreign ministry spokesman also said it would be entitled to take military action as of March 11 when US-South Korea military drills move into a full-scale phase as it had declared the truce invalid.

The nuclear threat was not taken too seriously since North Korea routinely resorts to such bluster even though it would be eviscerated if it launches its few weapons, which in any case, are not thought to have the range to hit mainland United States. Still, the desperate country - stalked by famine and hunger according to refugees who trickle out - has so little to lose that many experts fear its irrational utterances.

Successive US administrations have assured South Korea and Japan, who as the North's immediate neighbours are at the receiving end of its intimidation, that they will be protected with American nuclear umbrella and missile defense.

North Korea threatens US with nuclear strike; UN expands sanctions - The Times of India

 

[Razor]

Re: North Korea threatens USA with nuclear strike

North Korea ends non-aggression pacts with South, cuts hotline

Pyongyang announced Friday that it is nullifying non-aggression pacts with South Korea and cutting the hotline with its neighbor. It comes after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution expanding sanctions against North Korea.

North Korea "abrogates all agreements on non-aggression reached between the North and the South," the state-run Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement.

"It notifies the South side that it will immediately cut off the North-South hotline," said the statement, carried by the official KCNA news agency.

The new UN resolution adopted Thursday was drafted by the US and China in response to Pyongyang's third nuclear test. It was approved unanimously by the 15-nation council, after three weeks of negotiations between the US and China.

It calls on the implementation of tighter financial restrictions on North Korea, and for a crackdown on its attempts to ship and receive banned cargo in breach of UN sanctions. It also calls on world governments to deny aircraft permission to take off, land or fly over their territory if illicit cargo is suspected to be on board.

Source: RT

 

[Sam2012]

Re: North Korea threatens USA with nuclear strike

They are close friends of our rogue neighbour , what can u expect from them ? same dialogue they use against us

Coming back to the point , i would say its USA fault they funded Pak Atomic program in the name of fight against soviet in afghan & Kadir khan rogue gave all blue prints of Atom bomb to North Korea in return getting the long range missile technology

 

[Ash]

White House: US can defend against NKorea attack

Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. is fully capable of defending itself against a North Korean ballistic missile attack, the White House said Thursday, after Pyongyang threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States.

The threat from the North Koreans came ahead of a unanimous vote in the U.N. Security Council approving its toughest sanctions yet on the North in response to an atomic test last month.

North Korea has escalated its bellicose statements this week as the tightening of U.N. sanctions loomed. It has also threatened to scrap the cease-fire that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

"I can tell you that the United States is fully capable of defending against any North Korean ballistic missile attack," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

North Korea has now conducted three nuclear tests. In the past year, it has made strides toward its goal of having a nuclear weapon that could threaten the U.S. although experts doubt it yet has the capability to hit the U.S. with a ballistic missile or miniaturize a nuclear device to mount on such a missile.

However, the North possesses hundreds of shorter-range missiles that could hit U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea, said Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

It is difficult to know how capable U.S. missile defense is, should it be required.

 

[Payeng]

Re: White House: US can defend against NKorea attack

let the show go on op:

 

[Ash]

Re: White House: US can defend against NKorea attack

Meanwhile on the other side of the fence...........

N. Korean general says Pyongyang has nuke-tipped ICBMs on standby SEOUL, March 8 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean general said Thursday that the country has placed long-range missiles armed with nuclear warheads on standby, as Pyongyang said it will not bow to the United Nations resolution condemning its latest atomic weapons test.

According to the Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), Colonel General Kang Pyo-yong said soldiers are already positioned to launch a war of reunification if the order is given by its leaders. The paper said the general made clear at a speech given at a rally in Pyongyang that intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other rockets capable of attacking pre-set targets have been armed with various types of atomic warheads.

 

[datguy79]

Re: White House: US can defend against NKorea attack

I see China similarly going crazy on the world in the next 20-ish years. That is their window; having an excess of millions of young men.

 

[nrupatunga]

Re: North Korea Confirms It Conducted 3rd Nuclear Test

North Korea snaps peace pacts, hotline with SoKo

In an alarming development, North Korea on Friday cancelled all non-aggression pacts with South Korea and cut off a hotline with Seoul after the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions on Pyongyang to punish it for its February 12 nuclear test.

But technically isn't NoKo in war with SoKo from 50's. So what is this non-aggression pact??? Anyways is this buisness as usual or would this lead to some fireworks??

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MODS: Please merge all the below mentioned threads here, as all these incidents talk about post nuclear test fallout.

1) North Korea threatens USA with nuclear strike
2) North Korea threatened South Korea with "final destruction"
3) North Korea warns US to cancel South Korea drills
4) South Korea military says ready to strike back if North attacks

 

[Payeng]

Re: White House: US can defend against NKorea attack

Meanwhile on the other side of the fence...........

N. Korean general says Pyongyang has nuke-tipped ICBMs on standby SEOUL, March 8 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean general said Thursday that the country has placed long-range missiles armed with nuclear warheads on standby, as Pyongyang said it will not bow to the United Nations resolution condemning its latest atomic weapons test.

According to the Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), Colonel General Kang Pyo-yong said soldiers are already positioned to launch a war of reunification if the order is given by its leaders. The paper said the general made clear at a speech given at a rally in Pyongyang that intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other rockets capable of attacking pre-set targets have been armed with various types of atomic warheads.

Ok, I support their reunification cause but through a democratic process.

 

[Yusuf]

North Korea ends all non-aggression pacts with South

SEOUL: North Korea announced Friday it was voiding non-aggression pacts with South Korea and severing a hotline with Seoul, hours after the UN Security Council adopted tough new sanctions on Pyongyang.

North Korea "abrogates all agreements on non-aggression reached between the North and the South," the state-run Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement.

"It notifies the South side that it will immediately cut off the North-South hotline," said the statement, which was carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea ends all non-aggression pacts with South - TOI Mobile | The Times of India Mobile Site