South Korea’s defense chief called yesterday for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea if there is a clear indication the country is preparing a nuclear attack.
The comments came as the two sides opened a second day of talks on further developing their joint industrial complex in the North, and were likely to draw an angry reaction from Pyongyang, which recently issued its own threat to break off dialogue with Seoul and attack.
South Korea should “immediately launch a strike” on the North if there is a clear intention of a pending nuclear attack, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said at a seminar in Seoul.
Kim made similar remarks in 2008 when he was chairman of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, prompting North Korea to threaten South Korea with destruction.
Despite the rhetoric from both sides, officials held follow-up discussions yesterday on the industrial complex in the North’s border city of Kaesong, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said. It did not provide further details.
The South Korean delegation was scheduled to return home later yesterday, Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.
On Tuesday, they met for nearly four hours to assess their joint tour of industrial parks in China and Vietnam undertaken in December.
Chun had described the talks as taking place “in a serious and practical atmosphere.”
Seoul stressed the need for a quick and easy system for border crossings and customs clearance for South Koreans who travel to and from the industrial park, Chun said, in an apparent call on the North to improve the system.
The North said their recent surveys in China and Vietnam offered an opportunity to get information necessary to revitalize the complex, Chun said.
Kaesong, which combines South Korean capital and technology with North Korean labor, is the most prominent symbol of inter-Korean cooperation. About 110 South Korean factories employ some 42,000 North Korean workers.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s top nuclear envoy, Wi Sung-lac, left for the US yesterday for talks with Stephen Bosworth, the special US envoy to North Korea, and other US officials on the North’s nuclear programs, the Foreign Ministry said.
The trip comes as North Korea has recently made repeated demands that international sanctions be lifted before it will return to stalled negotiations aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programs.
Meanwhile, a South Korean state think tank said North Korean leader Kim Jong-il may die in two or three years, potentially sparking upheavals such as a coup, mass unrest or massacre.
In a rare report forecasting possible regime collapse in the North, the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) warned that internal unrest could prompt the North to start a limited war on the peninsula.
The report presented three scenarios after Kim’s death — a succession by his son Jong-un, collective military leadership or a single ruler from the military.
It said a post-Kim power vacuum would likely aggravate shortages and corruption, sparking civil unrest and a breakdown in order and giving the military an excuse to step in.
Whatever happens after Kim Jong-il dies, South Korea should pursue a policy of non-intervention and respect its people’s rights to self-determination, the report said.
Separately, Seoul’s state human rights watchdog said yesterday that the North operates six political prison camps holding some 200,000 inmates.
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