North Korea asked foreigners to vacate S.Korea, warning of an imminent ''thermonuclear'' war.
The North's latest warning, issued by its Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, urged foreign companies and tourists to leave South Korea.
"The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a
thermonuclear war due to the ever more undisguised hostile actions of the
United States and the South Korean puppet warmongers and their moves
for a war against" North Korea, the committee said in a statement
carried by state media on Tuesday."Once a war is ignited on the peninsula, it will be an all-out war, a merciless, sacred, retaliatory war waged by the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)," it went on to say.
"We do not wish harm on foreigners in South Korea should there be a war."
White House spokesman Jay Carney called the statement "more unhelpful rhetoric."
"It is unhelpful, it is concerning, it is provocative," he said.
The warning appeared to be an attempt to scare foreigners into pressing their governments to pressure Washington and Seoul to act to avert a conflict.
Analysts see a direct attack on Seoul as extremely unlikely, and there are no overt signs that North Korea's army is readying for war, let alone a nuclear one.
North Korea has been girding for a
showdown with the U.S. and South Korea, its wartime foes, for months.
The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty,
leaving the peninsula still technically at war.
North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong-Un, is seen as unpredictable.There was no sign of an exodus of foreign companies or tourists from South Korea.
Japan has deployed missile-defence systems in its
capital as North Korea warned foreigners in the South to take evacuation
measures in case of war.
The interceptors were set up as a precautionary measure, and the
Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun reported that North Korea would launch
a missile test on Wednesday.Two Patriot Advanced Capability-3 surface-to-air missile launchers were stationed at the defence ministry in Tokyo before dawn, and other batteries are to be installed in the semi-tropical island chain of Okinawa, officials said.
The deployment isn't unusual. Japan has responded to North Korea tests in the past by positioning interceptor missiles.
Are North Korea and South Korea merely bandying words or is something more sinister brewing?
Is this a mere diversion from Iran or a test of Obama's ''strategic patience''?
In the past its been mere rhetorics but Kim Jong-Un is quite unpredictable!
ReplyDeleteHe's a kid trying to show that he's come of age but doesn't know that experience is important. That's why you don't leave a kid with guns and knives let alone an army.
ReplyDelete