S. Korea worries that N. Korea’s military actions enters into reality

Posted on : 2009-05-28 12:48 KST Modified on : 2009-05-28 12:48 KST
As N. Korea increases its military exercises, S. Korean navy expresses concerns of an unintended military clash around the Northern Limit Line
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The Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People’s Army issued an announcement on Wednesday saying that the governments of the U.S. and South Korea have created a “state of war” on the Korean Peninsula. It said North Korea would respond to any interception and searching of North Korean vessels as a military strike and that the armistice agreement between South Korea and North Korea has lost binding force. It added it could not guarantee the legal status of the five islands in waters northeast of their maritime borders (Baengnyeong-do, Daecheong-do, Socheong-do, Yeonpyeong-do and U-do), or the safe passage of U.S. and South Korean naval ships or civilian shipping vessels in neighboring waters.

North Korea confirmed its earlier statement that it would take the Lee Myung-bak administration‘s participation in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) for weapons of mass destruction as a “declaration of war.” North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF) also took aim at South Korea’s PSI participation Wednesday and said, “We will respond with practical measures corresponding with those taken in wartime.”

North Korea has consistently taken issue with the armistice system. In May 1994, a spokesperson from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement demanding the shift from the armistice system to a peace accord system, and installed the Panmunjom Mission of the North Korean People‘s Army in the place of the cease-fire committee. This time, however, the view among experts is that there is a strong possibility North Korea will take military action.

“North Korea has made several statements in the past saying that it would not be bound by the armistice agreement, but at those times a military response from North Korea was merely conjecture or possibility,” said Paik Hak-soon, a senior fellow of Inter-Korean Relations Studies at the Sejong Institute. “Given that North Korea has now effectively declared a state of war in which the armistice agreement loses its binding force, and is making public proclamations about ’striking out on their own,’ North Korea’s military actions have entered into a stage of becoming reality,” Paik added.

With North Korea warning that it cannot guarantee the safe passage of South Korea warships and vessels traveling in the waters around the five islands in the area of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the Ministry of National Defense is beefing up its readiness posture.

As military actions from North Korea are foreseeable, military authorities are mentioning a fighter attack on Baengnyeong Island or Yeonpyeong Island, a coastal artillery assault on navy vessels, or on Baengnyeong or Yeonpyeong Islands, the inducement of hostilities at the NLL, and an attempt to land on and occupy Baengnyeong Island and the West Sea archipelago.

This year, North Korea positioned a 130 mm and 76.2 mm coastal artillery to cover a firing range distance of 27 km and 12 km respectively, and 152 mm terrestrial howitzers on the islands and coast of southwest Hwanghae Province. “Since mid-January, North Korea has been opening its gunports, unsealing the entrances to coastal artillery positions set in caves,” said a military official.

It is also known that the number of training exercises by the North Korean air force from January to the present has increased six-fold when compared to figures taken from the same period last year. In has also been reported that in response, South Korea‘s Air Force has increased its own sorties by an estimated four times the number of previous years, and has its squadron of fighter planes on emergency standby. 

Military authorities are focusing on the phrase “will respond with an immediate and instantaneous military strike to the slightest hostile action” in Panmunjom Mission’s statement. Their concerns are about the possibility of an accidental clash between South Korean and North Korean navy patrol boats used to monitor fishing activities, including blue crabs catches in the West Sea.

As of mid-May, there were more than 110 Chinese fishing vessels operating illegally near Yeonpyeong Island and over 170 near Daecheong Island in the waters near the NLL. Rising sea temperatures this year have led to expectations of larger catches than in previous years.

“Chinese fishing boats have been swarming in due to the increase in the catch around the NLL, and our boats have gone past the NLL trying to catch them,” said a military official. “There is the possibility of an unintended military clash occurring during a crackdown on Chinese fishing boats engaged in illegal activities by the North Korean navy‘s coastal defense ships or a crackdown on South Korean vessels crossing the NLL by ships from our side.”

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

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