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Great, another possible war. Don't people get tired of them? *NM* Yunalesca Send a noteboard - 11/03/2013 06:51:38 PM

View original postNorth Korea ends peace pacts with South


View original post8 March 2013 Last updated at 09:51 GMT


View original postNorth Korea says it is scrapping all non-aggression pacts with South Korea, closing its hotline with Seoul and shutting their shared border point.


View original postThe announcement follows a fresh round of UN sanctions punishing Pyongyang for its nuclear test last month.


View original postEarlier, Pyongyang said it had a right to carry out a pre-emptive nuclear strike and was pulling out of the armistice that ended the Korean War.


View original postThe US said "extreme rhetoric" was not unusual for Pyongyang.


View original postChina, which is the North's only major ally, called for both North and South to show restraint and to continue talking.


View original postBeijing rarely criticises its ally, but has criticised the North's nuclear tests and has given support to the UN's sanctions.


View original postSouth Korea's President Park Geun-hye said the current security situation was "very grave" but that she would "deal strongly" with provocation from the North.


View original postShe also said she was ready to talk to Pyongyang if it "comes out on the path toward change".


View original post'Puppet traitors'


View original postThe North Korean announcement, carried on the KCNA state news agency, said the North was cancelling all non-aggression pacts with the South and closing the main Panmunjom border crossing inside the Demilitarized Zone.


View original postThe two Koreas have reached a range of agreements over the years, including a 1991 pact on resolving disputes and avoiding military clashes, but the North Korean statement did not expand on what was being cancelled.


View original postIt also said it was notifying the South that it was "immediately" cutting off the North-South hotline, saying there was "nothing to talk to the puppet group of traitors about".


View original postThe hotline, installed in 1971, is intended as a means of direct communication at a time of high tension, but is also used to co-ordinate the passage of people and goods through the heavily-fortified Demilitarized Zone.


View original postNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un also visited front-line military units that were involved in the shelling of a South Korean island in 2010, KCNA reports.


View original postThe reports said he had urged soldiers to keep themselves ready to "annihilate the enemy" at any time.


View original postThe BBC's Lucy Williamson in Seoul says it appears the North is trying to build a sense of crisis domestically, with a large rally staged in Pyongyang on Friday and reports of camouflage netting on public transport.


View original postNorth Korea has breached agreements before and withdrawing from them does not necessarily mean war, our correspondent says, but it does signal a more unpredictable and unstable situation.


View original postShutting down the hotline will leave both more exposed to misunderstandings, she adds.


View original post'Punishment mode'


View original postSeoul's defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said that if the North were to carry out a nuclear attack on South Korea it would become "extinct from the Earth by the will of mankind".


View original postHe also warned that in response to any provocation from the North, Seoul would "immediately" turn the US-South Korean military drills currently being conducted "into a punishment mode to respond to it as planned".


View original postThe US, the main focus of North Korean ire, said it was capable of protecting itself and its allies from any attacks.


View original post"One has to take what any government says seriously," state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said of the nuclear threat.


View original post"It is for that reason that I repeat here that we are fully capable of defending the United States. But I would also say that this kind of extreme rhetoric has not been unusual for this regime, unfortunately."


View original postThe North Korean declaration came after the UN Security Council in New York unanimously backed Resolution 2094, imposing the fourth set of sanctions.


View original postThe resolution targets North Korean diplomats, cash transfers and access to luxury goods.


View original postIt imposes asset freezes and travel bans on three individuals and two firms linked to North Korea's military.


View original postSouth Korea's ambassador to the UN, Kim Sook, said it was time for North Korea to "wake up from its delusion" of becoming a nuclear state.


View original post"It can either take the right path toward a bright future and prosperity, or it can take a bad road toward further and deeper isolation and eventual self-destruction," he said.


View original postUS ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said the sanctions would "further constrain" North Korea's ability to develop its nuclear programme.


View original postShe warned that the UN would "take further significant actions" if Pyongyang were to carry out another nuclear test.


View original postMost people have forgotten, if they ever knew, the undeclared Korean War never ended. North and South Korea never forgot: They signed a CEASEFIRE (NOT peace treaty) in 1953, set up and still guard their respective sides of the Demilitarized Zone with their allies aid, and waited to see who would break the peace first. Now we know. Seoul residents who have lived their whole lives literally beneath the barrels of massive North Korean artillery batteries must be terrified.

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North Korea Withdraws from Korean War Armistice - 08/03/2013 10:39:44 PM 1281 Views
Again? Didn't they "tear up the armistice" a few years ago? - 08/03/2013 10:49:59 PM 578 Views
They said they were "no longer obligated" after the second nuke test, and would resist attacks. - 09/03/2013 10:16:17 PM 672 Views
Not to diminish the role of China in this but you're bypassing the actual issue - 09/03/2013 11:26:18 PM 606 Views
I would like it noted I responded to you before you responded to me. - 09/03/2013 11:40:18 PM 697 Views
Duly noted - 10/03/2013 01:03:59 AM 690 Views
Re: Duly noted - 11/03/2013 06:14:59 PM 623 Views
Re: Duly noted - 11/03/2013 07:05:17 PM 666 Views
Re: Duly noted - 11/03/2013 10:34:36 PM 563 Views
Re: Duly noted - 12/03/2013 02:04:05 AM 660 Views
One word: evacuation. - 10/03/2013 03:22:42 AM 556 Views
Time constraints - 10/03/2013 04:37:51 AM 693 Views
NK artillery myth - 10/03/2013 03:59:36 PM 714 Views
Great, another possible war. Don't people get tired of them? *NM* - 11/03/2013 06:51:38 PM 509 Views

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