hankyoreh

Unification Minister

By Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter

The battle of nerves between North and South Korea that started when Pyongyang made its “important proposal” on Jan. 16 is now entering its sixth day. North Korea asked that the US not bring tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula, while South Korea’s Unification Ministry brushed aside the North’s proposal as “propaganda and rhetoric.”

In the Jan. 22 issue of the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, North Korea called on the US to refrain from rashly bringing “nuclear strike capability” into South Korea. The North was asking the US not to mobilize B-2s, B-52s, and other bombers capable of carrying out a nuclear strike for the Key Resolve/Foal Eagle US-ROK joint military drills scheduled to start in late February.

Referring to the North’s military arsenal as “a deterrent against war adopted in self-defense,” the paper criticized South Korean government for “not saying a single word about the American military threat that precipitated the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula while branding our nuclear deterrent as a ‘threat’ and joining with foreign powers to create an anti-Republic nuclear hullabaloo.”

Meanwhile, the South Korean government reconfirmed that it cannot accept North Korea’s “important proposal” or its calls for improving inter-Korean relations. During a forum lecture held at a hotel in Seoul on Wednesday, Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said, “The history and current status of relations between North and South Korea show us how unreliable North Korea’s words are. We have no choice but to view North Korea’s proposal as propaganda and rhetoric.”

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