North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatened South Korea with war if “even 0.001mm” of the North’s territory is violated, as Pyongyang abolished agencies that oversaw cooperation and reunification, state media said yesterday.
Kim also said Pyongyang would not recognize the two nations’ de facto maritime border, the Northern Limit Line, and called for constitutional changes allowing North Korea to “occupy” Seoul in war, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
In Seoul, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told his Cabinet that should nuclear-armed North Korea carry out a provocation, South Korea would hit back with a response “multiple times stronger,” pointing to his military’s “overwhelming response capabilities.”
Photo: KCNA via Reuters
The hawkish rhetoric on both sides of the border follows a sharp deterioration of inter-Korean ties, with Pyongyang’s spy satellite launch in November last year prompting Seoul to partially suspend a 2018 military agreement aimed at defusing tensions.
Pyongyang’s decision to jettison the agencies charged with overseeing cooperation and reunification with South Korea was announced by North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament, KCNA said, part of a string of measures that have escalated tensions, including live-fire artillery drills and missile launches.
In a speech delivered at the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim called for the drawing up of new legal measures to define South Korea as “the most hostile state,” KCNA reported.
“In my opinion, we can specify in our constitution the issue of completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming the ROK [Republic of Korea] and annex it as a part of the territory of our Republic in case a war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula,” Kim said.
“If the Republic of Korea violates even 0.001mm of our territorial land, air and waters, it will be considered a war provocation,” he said.
The decision comes shortly after Kim labeled South Korea the “principal enemy” and stated that continuing to seek reconciliation was a “mistake.”
In their constitutions, both North and South Korea claim sovereignty over the whole of the Korean Peninsula.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea — the North and South’s official names — were founded 75 years ago, but still technically regard each other as illegal entities.
Until now, what passed for diplomatic relations were handled by the South Korean Ministry of Unification and the North Korean Committee for Peaceful Reunification — one of the agencies the Supreme People’s Assembly has now declared abolished.
Cho Han-bum, a researcher at the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification, said that the North Korean system has long been grounded on the idea of reunification, an unachieved wish of the nation’s founding leader and Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung.
“Now he is denying everything that his predecessors have done,” Cho said.
Pyongyang might be engaging in “mirror imaging,” responding to Seoul’s adjustments to the mission of the unification ministry to focus more on human rights issues.
“The Kim (Jong-un] regime is taking disproportionate steps in dismantling its inter-Korean organizations and formalizing a hostile policy line toward the South,” he said.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
RSS