Korea: Tensions mount as N. Korea threatens attack

Korea Times

N. Korea threatens to attack South
By Lee Tae-hoon

North Korea threatened Sunday to unleash another military attack against Seoul if the latter refuses to suspend “psychological warfare” operations, as South Korean and the U.S. troops prepared to start annual joint military exercises on the peninsula.

The latest warning came a day before the commencement of the Key Resolve/Foal Eagle drills and follows a lawmaker’s revelation last week that the South Korean military had resumed sending propaganda leaflets to the North.

"The ongoing psychological warfare … is a treacherous deed and a wanton challenge to the demand of the times and desire of all the fellow countrymen to bring about a new phase … through all-round dialogue and negotiations," a North Korean military official told the regime’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

A defense official said the North warned of firing on South Korean facilities involved in "psychological warfare" in a “self-defense action,” unless the South suspends its propaganda campaign.

The threat came on the heels of remarks by Rep. Song Young-sun of the minor opposition Future Hope Alliance that the South Korean military began sending basic necessities and leaflets via balloons to the communist North in early February.

Citing a military report submitted to the National Assembly, lawmaker Song said Thursday that the South Korean military has purchased 620 million won ($550,000) worth of basic goods for the anti-North Korean government campaign.

She added that Seoul sent 100,000 “pieces of basic supplies,” including toiletries, gloves and instant food over the past month, and 3 million propaganda leaflets in balloons since late 2010.

Seoul had stopped sending supplies in balloons to the North since 2000 and other types of psychological warfare had been suspended between the two Koreas for years under a 2004 agreement.

In May last year, the North threatened to fire at South Korean loudspeakers along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and destroy them, if Seoul resumed propaganda broadcasting.

Also on Sunday, North Korean representatives at Panmunjeom, the inter-Korean border village, reiterated their usual threat against the joint war games, which will begin today.

The North Korean officials said their armed forces would launch "an all-out war of unprecedented scale" and turn Seoul into "a sea of fire" if the South and the U.S. "invaders" provoked Pyongyang with the threat of war.



http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/02/116_82157.html