NORTH KOREA has warned that it is fully ready for war with South Korea, chilling words in a fresh bout of sabre-rattling by the secretive Stalinist country, just hours before US secretary of state Hillary Clinton arrived in Seoul.
“The Lee Myung-Bak group of traitors should never forget that the Korean People’s Army is fully ready for an all-out confrontation,” a spokesman for the army general staff was quoted as saying on the official North Korean news agency KCNA.
The language is pure cold war and underlines just how tense the situation remains on the Korean peninsula, even if most in South Korea and the wider region interpret the rhetoric as a vague threat rather than confrontational.
South Korea is still technically at war with its cousins to the north who have also ratcheted up tensions by declaring plans to test long-range missiles that could threaten Japan or Alaska. Mrs Clinton has said any missile test would be “very unhelpful” for US-North Korean relations and has urged Pyongyang to tone down its sabre-rattling rhetoric.
The underlying message from the North is aimed squarely at the conservative government of Lee Myung-bak, which since coming to power has cut off unconditional South Korean aid to Pyongyang until it sticks to its pledge to dismantle its nuclear programme.
To the North’s fury, Mr Lee has also questioned whether South Korea should honour a 2007 agreement for massive economic aid for Pyongyang that his predecessor signed at a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
North Korea says Mr Lee is trying to destroy all goodwill between the two Koreas and it has declared all peace agreements with the South null and void.
Among the peace accords scrapped was a 1991 pact that recognised a disputed border in the Yellow Sea as an interim frontier. The border was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999 and 2002 and there are fears of renewed fighting there.
Also raising hackles in the North, as they do every year, are regular joint exercises by South Korean and US forces – this year “Key Resolve/Foal Eagle” takes place in March.
Pyongyang said the manoeuvres are preparations for war and the South would pay a “high price”.
It said earlier this week that it has the right to “space development” – a term it used in 1998 when it conducted a ballistic missile test, claiming it had put a satellite into orbit. Pyongyang carried out its first nuclear test blast in 2006, and says it has atomic bombs.
Mrs Clinton arrives in Beijing today for talks that are expected to underline the warm ties between Washington and China. While promising to address problem issues such as human rights, the overall tone of her remarks before leaving on her trip, which has also included Japan and Indonesia, has been mild. She said Washington needed a “positive and co-operative” relationship with Beijing, a sign of how relations between the two countries have become closer in reality, even if ideological gaps remain.
The US is China’s most important export market after the European Union, while China is the world’s largest holder of treasury bonds.
Mrs Clinton also recognises China’s growing regional importance in the diplomatic arena, particularly in brokering a deal with North Korean on the nuclear issue.