North Korea scraps hotline, non-aggression pact with South
Picture taken on March 6, 2013 by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency shows soldiers of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in military training at an undisclosed place in North Korea. / KNS/AFP/Getty Images
SEOUL, South Korea North Korea is canceling a hotline and a nonaggression pact with rival South Korea and reiterating past threats in anger over a U.N. Security Council vote to impose more sanctions on Pyongyang for its third nuclear test.
The statement the North issued Friday comes after the council leveled tough, new sanctions Thursday targeting the North's economy and leadership.
The reclusive regime already has threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States.
It says it will retaliate with "crushing strikes" if enemies intrude into its territory. It also says it is voiding past nuclear disarmament statements between North and South Korea.
It had previously vowed to cancel the armistice that closed the Korean War in 1953.
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N. Korea warns "preemptive nuclear attack" against U.S.
The Security Council penalties came in a unanimous resolution drafted by the U.S. along with China, which is North Korea's main benefactor. Beijing said the focus now should be to "defuse the tensions" by restarting negotiations.
The resolution sent a powerful message to North Korea's new young leader, Kim Jong Un, that the international community condemns his defiance of Security Council bans on nuclear and ballistic tests and is prepared to take even tougher action if he continues flouting international obligations.
"Taken together, these sanctions will bite, and bite hard," U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said. "They increase North Korea's isolation and raise the cost to North Korea's leaders of defying the international community."
The new sanctions were a reaction to North Korea's underground nuclear test on Feb. 12 and were the fourth set of sanctions imposed by the U.N. since the country's first test in 2006. They are aimed at reining in Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development by requiring all countries to freeze financial transactions or services that could contribute to the programs.
North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, the country's arm for dealing with cross-border affairs with Seoul, said it will retaliate with "crushing strikes" if enemies intrude into its territory "even an inch and fire even a single shell." It also said it was voiding past nuclear disarmament agreements between North and South Korea.
South and North Korea agreed in a 1992 joint declaration not to produce, test or use nuclear weapons. North Korea has since conducted three nuclear tests.
The resolution also targets North Korea's ruling elite by banning all nations from exporting expensive jewelry, yachts, luxury automobiles and race cars to the North. It also imposes new travel sanctions that would require countries to expel agents working for sanctioned North Korean companies.
The success of the sanctions could depend on how well they are enforced by China, where most of the companies and banks that North Korea is believed to work with are based.
Tensions with North Korea have escalated since Pyongyang launched a rocket in December and conducted last month's nuclear test, the first since Kim took charge. Many countries, especially in the region, had hoped he would steer the country toward engagement and resolution of the dispute over its nuclear and missile programs. Instead, the North has escalated its threats.
The U.N. has long threatened North Korea with sanctions should it continue testing nuclear devices and missiles. Several U.N. resolutions bar North Korea from conducting nuclear or missile tests because the Security Council considers Pyongyang a would-be proliferator of weapons of mass destruction, and its nuclear testing a threat to international peace and stability. North Korea dismisses that as a double standard, and claims the right to build nuclear weapons as a defense against the United States, which it has seen as Enemy No. 1 since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Immediately before Thursday's Security Council vote, a spokesman for Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for "a pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors" because Washington is "set to light a fuse for a nuclear war."
The statement was carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
In the capital of Pyongyang, Army Gen. Kang Pyo Yong told a crowd of tens of thousands that North Korea is ready to fire long-range nuclear-armed missiles at Washington, which "will be engulfed in a sea of fire."
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. is "fully capable" of defending itself against a North Korea ballistic missile attack.
Experts doubt that the North has mastered how to mount a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile capable of reaching the mainland United States.
The North Korean statement appeared to be the most specific open threat of a nuclear strike by any country against another. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the threat "absurd" and suicidal.
North Korea also has threatened to scrap the cease-fire that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. It has a formidable array of artillery near enough to the Demilitarized Zone to strike South Korean and American forces with little warning.
The top U.S. envoy on North Korea, Glyn Davies, cautioned Pyongyang not to miscalculate, saying the U.S. will take necessary steps to defend itself and its allies, including South Korea, where it bases more than 28,000 U.S. forces.
"We take all North Korean threats seriously enough to ensure that we have the correct defense posture to deal with any contingencies that might arise," Davies told reporters.
Rice said "the entire world stands united in our commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and in our demand that North Korea comply with its international obligations."
China's U.N. Ambassador, Li Baodong, said the resolution reflects the determination of the international community to prevent nuclear proliferation, but he stressed that its adoption "is not enough."
"The top priority now is to defuse the tensions, bring down heat ... bring the situation back on the track of diplomacy, on negotiations," Li said.
The resolution stresses the Security Council's commitment "to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution" to North Korea's nuclear program and urges a resumption of the long-stalled six-party talks involving both Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan.
South Korea's U.N. Ambassador, Kim Sook, said North Korea's threats and inflammatory statements will be dealt with "resolutely."
"North Korea must wake up from its delusion of becoming a ... nuclear weapons state and make the right choice," he said. "It can either take the right path toward a bright future and prosperity, or it can take a bad road toward further and deeper isolation and eventual self-destruction."
Russia's U.N. Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, also warned that "new threats or trying to build up the military muscle in the region ... might be taking us away from the need to resume six-party talks," which he added must be an international priority of all countries.
In addition to the sanctions, the resolution bans further ballistic missile launches, nuclear tests "or any other provocation," and demands that North Korea return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It condemns all of North Korea's ongoing nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment.
It strengthens inspections of suspicious cargo heading to and from the country, calls on states to step up "vigilance" of possible illegal activity by North Korean diplomats.
To get around financial sanctions, North Koreans have been carrying around large suitcases filled with cash to move illicit funds. The resolution expresses concern that these bulk cash transfers may be used to evade sanctions. It clarifies that the freeze on financial transactions and services that could violate sanctions applies to all cash transfers as well as the cash couriers.
The resolution identifies three individuals, one corporation and one organization that will be added to the U.N. sanctions list. The targets include top officials at a company that is the country's primary arms dealer and main exporter of ballistic missile-related equipment, and a national organization responsible for research and development of missiles and probably nuclear weapons.
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1. I don't believe the bulk of people in NK understand what the rest of the world is saying/doing about NK
2. The elite are allowed to enjoy luxury items to keep the NK citizens in the dark.
3. Telling the NK people to prepare for war makes the people fear and focus on something other the strife they endure.
4. The sanctions provide evidence of the SK & US threats to NK people
5. The threats voiced by NK leader allows him to look like big world player than the short fat powerless DS that he is.
6. Since the NK elite enjoy luxury, they have no reason to open its borders and integrate with the rest of the world. They don't care about the NK citizens.
Though to be fair, it was all China's fault... somehow...
The Korean War was fought at a time when the USA was at an all time high for rational, reasonable rhetoric about communist countries. That was back when we blacklisted folksingers and had to fight the Communist wherever we found them.
This Kim guy and his generals need a time out. They're obviously paranoid about the intentions of the USA...whom everybody knows is the most peaceful country in the world, ever.
The 'child king' runs nothing.The Generals rule North Korea."
This poster has gotten it right. I've been saying for months that Kim is nothing more than a sock puppet for the ossified Generals who are really running the show. Some these old f@rts have seen service with Kim Il Sung back in the 50's; there is no way there will be ANY substantive change in North Korean foreign policy until the last of these Methuselahs have shriveled up and died off.
Now don't get me wrong. I am not saying that Kim Jr. has any revolutionary ideas on the subject of DRNK's relations with the West, I am merely saying if he did or does, he is verrrry careful to keep them to himself.
So, what's being done in the meantime? right now, the North is getting some satisfaction that they are ruffling the feathers of the All-Powerful Western Axis of Evil. I believe they think they can use their bombast to gain some kind of leverage to use for some sort of economic advantage whatever that may mean.
I am not at all sure how closely the generals are running to the brink. They may not even wonder as I do whether there are any Ohio Class Boomers lurking off shore as we speak or, more likely, how many. They give every appearance of not knowing - or not caring - that South Korea is perfectly capable of giving them a proper bloody nose even if they restrict themselves to conventional weaponery. Their overconfidence in China's willingness to risk all in aiding their unstable ally may also be misplaced - I think it might be.
This is a very dangerous game the DRNK is playing and, unlike the Soviets of old, these doofuses have no expertise whatever in how to play it properly. I HOPE there will be a peaceful resolution but if the nursing home crowd running Pyongyang's apparatus doesn't back off, or leave SOME wriggle room that hope may be forlorn.....