The rival Koreas are discussing the possible relocation of North Korea’s long-range artillery systems away from the tense Korean border, South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon said yesterday as the countries forge ahead with steps to lower tensions and extend a recent detente.
North Korea has deployed an estimated 1,000 artillery pieces along the border, posing a significant threat to Seoul and the metropolitan area.
In a speech marking the 68th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1950-1953 Korean War, Lee said that “moving [North Korea’s] long-range artillery to the rear is under discussion,” as he explained what types of goodwill steps between the sides have been taken in the past few months.
Lee’s comments appear to be Seoul’s first official confirmation of media reports that South Korea demanded that the North reposition its forward-deployed artillery pieces during inter-Korean military talks this month.
The South Korean Ministry of Defense, which has denied the reports, said it had no immediate comment on Lee’s speech.
A 2016 South Korean defense white paper described the North’s long-range artillery as one of the country’s biggest threats, along with its nuclear and missile programs.
Seoul, a city of about 10 million people, is about 40km to 50km from the border.
South Korean media speculated that during the June 14 military talks, the North likely demanded that South Korea and the US withdraw their own artillery systems from the border as a reciprocal measure.
About 28,500 US soldiers are deployed in South Korea.
Also yesterday, military officers from the two Koreas met to discuss how to fully restore their military hotline communication channels, the ministry said.
The results of the talks were expected later yesterday.
The talks came a day after Seoul said it would “indefinitely suspend” two small-scale annual military drills with the US.
The drills involving marines from the allies were supposed to occur from next month to September, the ministry said in a statement.
South Korea is willing to take unspecified additional measures if North Korea is continuously engaged in “productive” negotiations, it said.
Last week, South Korea and the US announced the suspension of their larger, annual military exercises called the Ulchi Freedom Guardian, part of their efforts to increase the chances of successful nuclear diplomacy with North Korea.
Some experts have said the drills’ suspension could weaken the allies’ combined defense posture against North Korea.
PAST TACTICS: In what some see as a return to hardline strategies, the new Afghan rulers hanged the body of an alleged kidnapper from a crane as warning to criminals The Taliban hanged a dead body from a crane parked in a city square in Afghanistan on Saturday in a gruesome display that signaled the hardline movement’s return to some of its brutal tactics of the past. Taliban officials initially brought four bodies to the central square in the western city of Herat, then moved three of them to other parts of the city for public display, said Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi, who runs a pharmacy on the edge of the square. Taliban officials announced that the four were caught taking part in a kidnapping earlier on Saturday and were killed by police,
Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, reached out to South Korea for a second time in recent days, saying Pyongyang would consider taking part in another inter-Korean summit and declaring an end to the war if Seoul adopts a less hostile policy. “I felt that the atmosphere of the South Korean public desiring to recover the inter-Korean relations from a deadlock and achieve peaceful stability as soon as possible is irresistibly strong,” Kim Yo-jong said in a statement issued by the official Korean Central News Agency. “We, too, have the same desire.” Kim’s statement follows one she
‘SMOKESCREEN’: An agreement to declare an end to the Korean War would be ‘of no help at all’ and used to cover up ‘US hostile policy,’ a North Korean official said The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un yesterday said it was “admirable” of South Korea to propose a formal end to the Korean War, but demanded Seoul first drop its “hostile policies” towards Pyongyang. Kim Yo-jong’s remarks, carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, were in response to South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s recent calls for declaring an official end to the 1950-1953 conflict that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the two sides technically at war for more than half a century. In a speech at the UN General Assembly earlier this week, Moon proposed
A potential lurch to the left in Germany’s election on Sunday is scaring millionaires into moving assets into Switzerland, bankers and tax lawyers say. If the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), hard-left Linke and environmentalist Greens come to power, the reintroduction of a wealth tax and a tightening of inheritance tax could be on the political agenda. “For the super-rich, this is red hot,” said a German-based tax lawyer with extensive Swiss operations. “Entrepreneurial families are highly alarmed.” The move shows how many rich people still see Switzerland as an attractive place to park wealth, despite its efforts to abolish its image as a
RSS