N. Korea: No longer bound by 1953 truce

[Foxrac]

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea threatened military action Wednesday after South Korea joined a U.S.-led effort to limit the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

South Korea said Monday that it was joining the 6-year-old Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) because of "the grave threat WMD and missile proliferation is posing to global peace," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young.

The effort is aimed at halting shipments of weapons technology, a rare source of hard currency for North Korea, but Moon said the south would continue to uphold a shipping agreement with the North.

"Our revolutionary armed forces ... will regard" South Korea's participation "in the PSI as a declaration of war ..." the North's official news agency said.

Pyongyang also announced it was no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

"The Korean Peninsula is bound to immediately return to a state of war from a legal point of view, and so our revolutionary armed forces will go over to corresponding military actions," North Korea said through its news agency.

Since its April rocket launch, Pyongyang has considered almost any opposition a "declaration of war," including U.N. Security Council sanctions and participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative.

Within two weeks, the Security Council adopted a declaration condemning North Korea for launching the rocket on April 5. The North Korean Foreign Ministry said the condemnation infringed on the nation's sovereignty.

"Now that the group officially declared confrontation and war against (North Korea), its revolutionary armed forces will opt for increasing the nation's defense capability, including nuclear deterrent in every way, without being bound to the agreement adopted at the six-party talks," it continued, apparently referring to the Security Council.

Following Monday's nuclear test by North Korea, the Security Council condemned the move as a "clear violation" of international law, with even Pyongyang's closest ally criticizing the exercise. China said North Korea "disregarded the opposition of the international community."

In addition to its nuclear test, the North has fired five short-range missiles this week -- two on Monday and three on Tuesday -- according to Won Tae-jae, a spokesman for South Korea's Ministry of National Defense, the South's Yonhap news agency said.

North Korea's actions have heightened tensions worldwide, though U.S. officials said other nations will not be intimidated by the "provocative and destabilizing" moves, particularly Monday's nuclear test.

"If they want to continue to test and provoke the international community, they're going to find that they will pay a price, because the international community is very clear -- this is not acceptable, it won't be tolerated, and they won't be intimidated," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told CNN's "American Morning."

After passing a nonbinding statement of criticism on Monday, the Security Council is now working on passing "a strong resolution with teeth," Rice said.

"Those teeth could take various different forms -- there are economic levers, there are other levers that we might pursue," she said.

North Korea first tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006. Pyongyang threatened last month to carry out a new test after the Security Council condemned its test-firing of a long-range rocket and extended economic sanctions against the nation, which desperately needs food and energy assistance.

North Korea agreed in 2008 to scrap its nuclear weapons program -- which it said had produced enough plutonium for about seven atomic bombs -- in exchange for economic aid. But the deal foundered over verification and disclosure issues, and the North expelled international inspectors and announced plans to restart its main nuclear reactor.

N. Korea: No longer bound by 1953 truce - CNN.com

 

[Foxrac]

How are you feel if North Korea declare war against South Korea and serious conflict with several other countries?

 

[PowerON]

Korea War actual never stop since the begin.

 

[Foxrac]

Korea War actual never stop since the begin.

There's no serious conflict or warfare for 50 years until NK government made announce to no longer bound from truce, it means suspension of fighting.

 

[Jiro]

How are you feel if North Korea declare war against South Korea and serious conflict with several other countries?

whenever we hear about this, we Koreans just

 

[netrox]

If North Korea choose to break that truce and the agreements, it will face serious consequences. And I mean serious.

 

[Jiro]

If North Korea choose to break that truce and the agreements, it will face serious consequences. And I mean serious.

don't worry. the top NK men would never let that happen. They will assassinate him before they let that madman puts the country on suicide mission.

 

[Grummer]

They'd too scared stiff to be shot by their 'comrades' from violating orders, just as it happened to Stauffenberg. Also with one accident in this attempt it might end up as so WE WOULD BE ALL IN A FUCKING HUGE MESS

This is not something to snore about

 

[jazzy]

don't worry. the top NK men would never let that happen. They will assassinate him before they let that madman puts the country on suicide mission.

I hope so for sake of Korean people.

 

[Grummer]

i am more concerned about everyone else outside NK

 

[Jiro]

North Korean Leader Is Said to Pick a Son as Heir

WASHINGTON — American and South Korean officials say that Kim Jong-il, the North Korean dictator recovering from a stroke, appears to have designated his youngest son as his successor. Mr. Kim may have ordered the country’s second nuclear test last week in hopes of leaving his son in control of a country that has cemented its status as a nuclear-weapons state.

Little is known about the youngest son, Kim Jong-un, beyond reports that he was secretly schooled in Switzerland under an assumed name, posing as the son of a driver in the nearby North Korean Embassy. He skied Switzerland’s famous slopes, and was a fan of Michael Jordan.

But his path to power is hardly assured: some intelligence officials believe that everyone from the North Korean military to Kim Jong-il’s eldest son may be plotting behind the scenes to derail the succession plans, and North Korea’s last ally, China, is reportedly deeply uncomfortable with the thought of a third-generation family dynasty, unique among Communist nations.

As always in watching a state virtually sealed off from the outside world, analysts acknowledge that they are extrapolating from indicators, rather than hard evidence. Even Kim Jong-un’s age is uncertain; he is believed to be in his mid-20s.

In recent weeks, North Korean diplomats abroad have been told to begin to pay homage to Kim Jong-un and some schoolchildren have reportedly been including his name in their songs. His rise comes at the expense of his 38-year-old brother, Kim Jong-nam, best known for the moment when he was caught slipping into Japan on a false passport, on his way to Tokyo Disneyland.

In preliminary assessments of the May 25 underground nuclear test, top officials of the Obama administration say they believe it was linked to the power jockeying in Pyongyang more than any attempt to force President Obama into more negotiations in which North Korea tries to trade away its nuclear ability for American energy and security concessions.

“There was a sense that every North Korean escalation was intended as a bargaining chip,” said one senior administration official involved in the assessments. “Now there’s an alternative view taking hold: that Kim Jong-il wants to force the world to acknowledge it as a nuclear power before he dies. And we’re not going to do that.”

Mr. Obama has sent James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, and other senior officials to Japan, South Korea and China this week to attempt a unified response to the test, focusing on inspecting all sea and air traffic moving in and out of North Korea that could be carrying nuclear or missile technology, according to an administration official.

But it is a risky move, one that could leave Mr. Obama facing a possible military confrontation with the North as he increases troop levels in Afghanistan.

The most delicate issue is whether China will back the inspection of some North Korean vessels, which the North has already warned it would consider an act of war. The inspections were authorized, but not enforced, under a United Nations resolution passed after the North’s first nuclear test, in 2006.

A senior administration official said Tuesday that Chinese officials feared that if North Korea gained the ability to fit its nuclear weapons atop its long-range missiles, the United States would increase its military presence in the Pacific and Japan could reconsider its ban on its own nuclear weapons. But if the Chinese press too hard, the official said, “they risk unintentionally causing collapse in North Korea and instability” on their own border. The official spoke at a forum on Tuesday under rules that he not be quoted by name.

While Obama administration officials say they want to draw North Korea back into disarmament talks begun by President George W. Bush, they are not interested in negotiating yet another deal to disable the main nuclear facility at Yongbyon, where North Korea produces its bomb-grade plutonium. “The real challenge is to avoid a repetition of the past,” one senior administration official said.

Obama administration officials acknowledge that negotiations with the North may be all but impossible at a moment when it is unclear who is running the country and when all players in a succession struggle will avoid any perception of concessions to the United States.

There is no indication yet that the heir apparent has been involved in decisions about the nuclear program.

The current leader, Kim Jong-il, has three known sons. The eldest, Kim Jong-nam, was once considered the leading candidate to succeed his father, until the Disneyland episode added to rumors that his judgment was less than reliable. Kim Jong-nam is widely reported to have voracious appetites for alcohol and women, and his father apparently grew concerned that North Korea’s generals would never accept him, according to a former American intelligence official.

The North Korean leader’s middle son, Kim Jong-chol, 28, was another possibility, but Kenji Fujimoto, who once served as Kim Jong-il’s sushi chef, wrote in a memoir that Kim Jong-il dismissed that son as “girlish,” suggesting that he would not stand up to the West.

By default, that left Kim Jong-un. On Tuesday, South Korean lawmakers said they had been briefed by the country’s intelligence agency, and told he was the heir apparent. The intelligence agency intercepted messages to North Korean overseas missions a few days after the May 25 nuclear test, according to reports in Seoul.

“Our intelligence service has been following the matter for some time,” said Song Young-gil, an opposition lawmaker briefed by the intelligence agency. “They said that this message instructed the diplomats to pledge their allegiance to Kim Jong-un.”

Another lawmaker, Moon Kook-hyun, said he could not comment on a secret briefing but agreed that Kim Jong-un had been designated the successor. The intelligence agency declined to confirm the reports.

Inside the North, the subject is only whispered about. “I never thought that Kim Jong-il was human and thus mortal,” said Oh Yeon-jong, a defector who arrived in Seoul in 2004. “We didn’t know, didn’t talk about how many children he had, how many wives he had. I heard about them only when I arrived here.”

It also is not clear if a society that reveres seniority would accept such a young leader, and American officials are waiting for the next steps.

One test could be the response of Gen. O Kuk-ryol, the National Defense Commission’s vice chairman. Intelligence officials say they believe he would need to give his blessing to the transfer of power in Pyongyang. The general has taken greater control in recent years over the regime’s military and security policy. Analysts are also watching Jang Seong-taek, Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law, who is believed to run many day-to-day state affairs on behalf of the ailing leader.

In any case, the outside world will be transfixed. At the C.I.A., the youngest son’s picture used to be posted in the Asia division, and analysts gave him the moniker of “the Cute Leader” — a play on his father’s status as “Dear Leader” and his grandfather’s as “Great Leader.”

 

[PowerON]

It's like king that usually being heir to take control the country. Blah! Raise Samurai or ninja instead damn soldier to see how awesome to behead anyone. ke kek e