By As I expected the North Koreans are responding in kind to the decison of the South Korean government to join the Proliferation Security Initiative:
North Korea threatened military action Wednesday against U.S. and South Korean warships plying the waters near the Koreas‘ disputed maritime border, raising the specter of a naval clash just days after the regime’s underground nuclear test. In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned that Pyongyang faced unspecified consequences because of its “provocative and belligerent” acts.
Pyongyang, reacting angrily to Seoul’s decision to join an international program to intercept ships suspected of aiding nuclear proliferation, called South Korea’s decision tantamount to a declaration of war.
“Now that the South Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots,” North Korea is “compelled to take a decisive measure,” the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by state media.
The North Korean army called it a violation of the armistice the two Koreas signed in 1953 to end their three-year war, and said it would no longer honor the treaty. [Associated Press]
I have been reading today about all the people concerned about war on the peninsula because of North Korea withdrawing from the armistice agreement. What these people fail to realize is that the North Koreans never followed the armistice agreement to begin with.
Where do I start in regards to armistice violations from North Korea? They still hold hundreds of South Korean POW’s from the Korean War, they launched a huge commando raid to kill the South Korean President, have launched ambushes over the years to kill both ROK and US soldiers, bombed American bases, they have attacked South Korean ships along the Northern Limit Line, spies infiltrated by submarine launched days long gun battles in South Korea, and the list goes on and on.
In fact since 1991 the North Koreans have publicly declared they no longer recognize the Armistice Agreement. Probably the most symbolic violation by North Korea is the fact that they refuse to allow for decades the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission composed of Swedish, Polish, and Swiss officers to inspect North Korea for military build ups outside the Demilitarized Zone.
So this threat to not respect the Armistice Agreement is nothing new and being used by North Korea to legitimize any response to any South Korean attempt to board and inspect North Korean ships. As I have stated before joining and actually enforcing the PSI are two different things and North Korea is letting it be known that there will be consequences if the PSI is enforced.
9:01 pm on May 27th, 2009 1
“‘Now that the South Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots,’ North Korea is ‘compelled to take a decisive measure,’ the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by state media.”
This paragraph sounds like the words of a bunch of desperate men living in a paranoid, delusional world. They would exhibit more wisdom if they first learned how to attach a miniaturized nuke to a missile before ‘excessively’ talking trash or doing something stupid.
9:01 am on May 28th, 2009 2
I don’t expect this to be much more than saber rattling for the POTUS. I hope I’m correct. Maby he will pull our people out of this useless duty assignment. I can only hope.
3:49 pm on May 28th, 2009 3
I don’t think people even care anymore about North Korea. Even on this blog, there are more comments about Kimchi Curing Obesity and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell than about North Korea Testing Nukes.
4:05 pm on May 28th, 2009 4
I have a question. It seems that every time the US tries to pull out, or tries to get Seoul to defend itself, so they can pull out, N Korea ups the anti. It appears that N Korea actually WANTS the USFK in S Korea.
Now, I am of the opinion that should the US turn over war-time command, which would effectively allow troops to be withdrawn, the North would no longer have their Public Enemy No. 1, which would make it more difficult to persuade their people to spend all their resources on the militay rather than food, and also, so long as the US is actively engaged in S Korea, China would think twice about annexing N Korea.
I would be curious as to what you all think….
5:04 pm on May 28th, 2009 5
“…China would think twice about annexing N Korea.”
Why would anyone want to annex North Korea? It would be like inheriting a pit of one million vipers. I don’t think even China is interested in something like this.
7:57 pm on May 28th, 2009 6
This is something I have opined before myself about how North Korea despite all the whinging to the contrary actually want USFK in Korea in order to legitimize why the Kim family regime has to implement their Songun policy and keep the country on a war footing. Then you have the South Koreans as well that want to keep USFK in place for the economic and political benefits from it along with being able to moderate US behavior in regards to North Korea. Then you have many people within USFK and in Congress due to inertia and a strong South Korean lobby that also want to keep USFK in place.
I talk about the reasons why USFK will not withdraw anytime soon from Korea here:
http://rokdrop.com/2008/07/04/why-immediate-withdrawal-of-usfk-will-not-happen-anytime-soon/