South Korea protesters shout slogan during a rally, denouncing the 9th anniversary of the June 2000 summit between former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong II. -- PHOTO: AP
SEOUL - SOUTH Korea's president ordered his top security officials on Sunday to deal 'resolutely and squarely' with new North Korean warnings of a nuclear war on the eve of his US visit. In Washington, Vice-president Joe Biden said 'God only knows' what North Korea wants from the latest showdown.
Strengthening succession?
North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, reportedly had a stroke 10 months ago and analysts believe there may be a plan in place to name his inexperienced 26-year-old son, Kim Jong Un, as the future leader.
Lee Sang Hyun, an analyst at the Sejong Institute, a South Korean security think tank, said he believes the North will continue to conduct nuclear tests until it masters the technology to mount nuclear warheads on missiles and will give credit for it to Kim Jong Un.
SEOUL - South Korean activists floated 100,000 leaflets attached to balloons across the tense border into North Korea on Monday condemning the communist state's nuclear and missile programmes.
Around 20 people, including defectors, released 10 huge balloons carrying bundles of the flyers, one of which bore the slogan 'Dismantle nuclear weapons and missiles!' The leaflets also call for the toppling of leader Kim Jong-Il.
President Lee Myung Bak travels to Washington on Monday for talks with President Barack Obama that are expected to focus on the North's rogue nuclear and missile programmes.
The trip comes after North Korea's Foreign Ministry threatened war with any country that stops its ships on the high seas under new sanctions approved by the UN Security Council in response to its May 25 nuclear test.
It also vowed Saturday to 'weaponise' all its plutonium and acknowledged a long-suspected uranium enrichment programme for the first time. Both plutonium and uranium are key ingredients of atomic bombs.
A commentary published on Saturday in the North's state-run Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the US was deploying a vast number of nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan.
North Korea 'is completely within the range of US nuclear attack and the Korean peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of a nuclear war are the highest in the world,' it said.
Kim Yong Kyu, a spokesman at the US military command in Seoul, denied the allegation, saying the US no longer has nuclear bombs in South Korea. US tactical nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea in 1991 as part of arms reductions following the Cold War.
President Lee summoned his top security ministers on Sunday and ordered them to 'resolutely and squarely cope' with the North's threats, his office said. The Unification Ministry, responsible for ties with the North, issued a statement demanding that it stop inflaming tension and resume talks with the South.
'North Korea should give up its nuclear programme ... and stop any kind of military threat,' it said. 'We urge North Korea to respond in a sincere dialogue to improve South-North Korean relations.'
The new UN sanctions approved on Friday are aimed at depriving the North of the financing used to build its nuclear programme. They also authorise searches of North Korean ships suspected of transporting illicit ballistic missile and nuclear materials. -- AP
