After a strained week of escalating rhetoric between North and South Korea, tension peaked on Friday night after Kim Jong-un issued an ultimatum to Seoul to halt anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts by Saturday afternoon, or face military action.
North Korea accused the South of “psychological warfare” after South Korea began using loudspeakers to broadcast propaganda over the border into North Korea. This action prompted the North to issue the 48-hour ultimatum or face “military operations” to destroy the loudspeakers.
North Korea countered with its own propaganda when the state-run Korea Central News Agency accused the South of starting the exchange of artillery, describing it as “a serious military provocation that can never be pardoned.” It added, “A short while ago, the puppet war maniacs resumed psychological warfare broadcasts along all sectors of the front under the doubtful pretext of the explosion of a landmine.”
After an exchange of gunfire across the border on Thursday, Kim Jong-un issued a “quasi-state of war.” On Friday Pyongyang deployed mobile missile launchers capable of firing short-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and ordered its military into full combat readiness.
The loudspeaker broadcasts, which have been operating since August 11, include programs praising South Korea’s democracy and economic influence over the North’s oppressive government, as well as news and popular music. Each loudspeaker system has broadcast for more than 10 hours a day in three or four different time slots that were frequently changed for unpredictability.
North Korea is extremely sensitive to criticism of its government. Analysts in Seoul believe the North fears that the South’s broadcasts could demoralize its front-line troops and inspire them to defect. A senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said if North Korea attacks the loudspeakers, the South is ready to strike back at the North Korean units responsible for such attacks.
Kim Myong-chol, executive director of The Centre for North Korea-U.S. Peace and a Japan-based sympathizer for North Korea, theorizes the confrontation is a “conspiracy” by the U.S. and Japan designed to keep Park Geun-hye, the South Korean president, away from the upcoming ceremonies in Beijing to mark the end of the Second World War.
On Friday, Kim warned North Korea would carry out its threat if South Korea does not halt the propaganda broadcasts.
“If the loudspeakers are still in place at 5pm tomorrow, then the North will attack with artillery, from the air and with land forces,” he told the Telegraph. “What happens after that depends on the reaction of South Korea and the U.S. The North does not want a war, but South Korea and the U.S. want war. So we will destroy their forces in an instant.”
Asked how the destruction of all the South Korean and U.S. forces stationed south of the Demilitarized Zone might be achieved, Kim said the North is ready to use its nuclear weapons.
Clashes and confrontations are nothing new on the border between the two nations, but analysts are suggesting the situation is more critical this time.
On Friday, the Telegraph reported an interview with Rah Jong-yil, a former head of South Korean intelligence, who said: “Nobody knows what will happen when the deadline expires tomorrow, but I get the feeling that this situation is more grave than previously. There is a joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise going on at the moment and, from my own experience, North Korea used to adopt a defensive posture on these occasions. But now they are on the offensive, and that is disturbing to me.”
Rah said North Korea’s deadline placed Seoul in a difficult position. “There are countless ways in which the North can militarily provoke the South and the U.S.,” he said, “while we have no choice but to remain on the defensive. North Korea can choose the time, the place and the method by which they can provoke us, and all we can do is to remain watchful.”
In an effort to diffuse the tension, delegates from both countries engaged in high-level talks – the first in nearly a year – which stretched into the early hours of Sunday and resumed on Sunday.
“While the meeting offered a way for the rivals to avoid an immediate collision, the AP reported, “analysts in Seoul wondered whether the countries were standing too far apart to expect a quick agreement.”
The AP’s Eric Talmadge and Kim Tong-Hyung noted, “South Korea probably couldn’t afford to walk away with a weak agreement after it had openly vowed to stem a ‘vicious cycle’ of North Korean provocations amid public anger over the alleged land mine attack,” Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said ahead of the meeting. It was highly unlikely that the North would accept the South’s expected demand for Pyongyang to take responsibility for the land mine explosions and apologize, he added. However, Koh said the meeting might open the door to more talks between the rivals to discuss a variety of issues.
Newser reported an analyst at a Seoul research institute said there was no word on any breakthroughs, “but the meeting raises hopes that both sides can save face and avoid a confrontation.”
