[North Korea has since
issued a torrent of threats to turn Washington and Seoul into a “sea of fire.”
Its leader, Kim Jong-un, who has inherited the "military first"
policy of his late father, Kim Jong-il, has made a round of visits to military
units in the last week. He inspected live-fire artillery and amphibious landing
exercises, ordering his soldiers to send the enemies “to the bottom of the sea
as they run wild like wolves threatened with fire,” according to North Korean
media.]
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s military said it put all its missile and artillery
units on “the highest alert” on Tuesday, ordering them to be ready to hit South
Korea, as well as the United States and its military installations in Hawaii
and Guam.
The threat from the North’s Korean People’s Army Supreme Command came only hours after President Park Geun-hye of South Korea warned that the North Korean leadership could ensure its survival only when it abandons its nuclear weapons, long-range missiles, provocations and threats.
North Korea said on
Tuesday that all of its strategic rocket and long-range artillery units “are
assigned to strike bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor troops in the U.S.
mainland and on Hawaii and Guam and other operational zones in the Pacific as
well as all the enemy targets in South Korea and its vicinity.”
“They should be mindful
that everything will be reduced to ashes and flames the moment the first attack
is unleashed,” the North Korean command said in a statement carried by the
North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
Tensions on the Korean
Peninsula have risen after North Korea’s launching of a three-stage rocket in
December and its third nuclear test last month. In response, Washington and
Seoul pushed for a United Nations Security Council resolution imposing more
sanctions on North Korea and this month began their annual joint military
drills intended to warn North Korea against attacking the South.
North Korea has since
issued a torrent of threats to turn Washington and Seoul into a “sea of fire.”
Its leader, Kim Jong-un, who has inherited the "military first"
policy of his late father, Kim Jong-il, has made a round of visits to military
units in the last week. He inspected live-fire artillery and amphibious landing
exercises, ordering his soldiers to send the enemies “to the bottom of the sea
as they run wild like wolves threatened with fire,” according to North Korean
media.
In South Korea, Ms.
Park, the first woman to serve as the country’s president, showed her own
resolve on Tuesday, visiting a national cemetery to pay respect to the 46
sailors who were killed in 2010 when a South Korean navy corvette sank in an
explosion that the South said was caused by a North Korean torpedo attack.
“I strongly urge North
Korea to change,” Ms. Park said in a nationally televised speech observing the
three-year anniversary of the episode. “North Korea must immediately abandon
its thought that nuclear weapons will protect its regime.”
Although North Korea
denied responsibility for the sinking and some South Koreans questioned the
credibility of their government's investigation, which assigned blame on the
North, the episode has become for many South Koreans an emotional symbol of
North Korean hostility. On Monday, the South's conservative daily Chosun Ilbo
cited unnamed government officials as saying that if North Korea launched a
provocation like the Cheonan sinking, the South Korean military would retaliate
by launching missiles at gigantic statues of Mr. Kim's grandfather and father,
Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, which are objects of worship in the North.
The South Korean Defense
Ministry would not comment on the report, but vowed a “thousandfold,
ten-thousandfold retaliation” against a Cheonan-like provocation from the
North.
Calling the monuments
“symbols of the dignity of the supreme leadership” of North Korea, the North’s
Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, an agency in charge of
relations with Seoul, said on Tuesday that the North would “destroy the den of
confrontation, including Chongwadae, hotbed of all evils.” Chongwadae, or “the
Blue House,” is the South Korean presidential office.
North Korea warned that
Ms. Park should not repeat the “treacherous acts” of her predecessor, Lee
Myung-bak, whose hard-line policy, coupled with North Korean provocations,
resulted in a prolonged chill on the peninsula.
Many South Koreans fear
that North Korea might attempt localized military attacks on the South to try
to raise tensions and force Washington and Seoul to return to the negotiating
table with concessions.
On Tuesday, three
Internet sites run by North Korean defectors and anti-Pyongyang activists
reported hacking attacks that disrupted or paralyzed their operations. These
Web sites, including Daily NK,
often carry articles criticizing the North Korean leadership.
The attacks came just a
week after synchronized virus attacks paralyzed the computer networks of three
broadcasters and three banks in South Korea. Officials here were investigating
the possibility of North Korean involvement. Separately, they said they were
also investigating what caused temporary disruptions in Internet access for
seven provincial governments on Tuesday. South Korea and the United States say
that North Korea has trained hackers for cyberwarfare.
