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Threats and drills fuel fears of Korean clash

 
Published on Mar 10, 2013
10:41 AM
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In this photo taken Saturday, March 9, 2013, the guided-missile destroyers USS Lassen (DDG 82), left, and USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) arrive to participate in the annual joint military exercises, dubbed Key Resolve, between South Korea and the United States, at a naval port in Donghae, South Korea. South Korea and the U.S. on Monday will kick off the annual military drill amid worries about possible bloodshed following North Korea’s threat to scrap a decades-old war armistice and launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. -- FILE PHOTO: AP 

SEOUL (AFP) - The Korean peninsula will become a practice battlefield next week, with both North and South staging large-scale military drills as escalating tensions keep their armies on a hair trigger.

Sabre-rattling and displays of brinkmanship are nothing new in the region, but there are concerns that the current situation is so volatile that just one accidental step could escalate into serious confrontation and conflict.

The root of the tension lies in the North's third nuclear test last month and Pyongyang's rage at the punitive sanctions subsequently imposed by the UN Security Council on Thursday.

As well as threatening a "pre-emptive nuclear attack" on the United States and South Korea, Pyongyang said it would - effective Monday - rip up the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War and scrap peace pacts signed with Seoul.

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