“South Korea aggressive joint military exercises are totally halted”.
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Relations between Seoul and Beijing have soured as South Korea has been increasingly integrated into USA war plans.
President Park Geun-hye presides over a Cabinet Meeting at the Blue House on August 22, the first day of the US-ROK joint military drills known as Ulchi-Freedom Guardian.
Beijing is concerned that South Korea is not only strengthening military ties with the U.S. but also with Japan.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries started a massive joint annual exercise Monday, a drill that has drawn North Korean threats of nuclear retaliation.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said it appears the North planted the mines to prevent front-line North Korean soldiers from defecting to South Korea via Panmunjom.
“North Korea launched one SLBM at 5:30 a.m. from an area near Sinpo, South Hamgyong Province, in the direct of the East Sea”, the joint chiefs statement read. The missile flew some 500 kilometers and fell into waters 80km inside Japan’s air defense identification zone, the JCS said.
“This is a threat to Japan’s security and an unforgivable reckless act that significantly damages the peace and stability of the region”, Abe said Wednesday morning.
As the exercise began yesterday, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said the defections signalled domestic turmoil in Pyongyang that could cause North Korea to lash out.
Current UN resolutions prohibit North Korea from any test of ballistic missile technology.
The talks, held in Tokyo amid frictions between Beijing and its neighbors over territorial claims and regional security, renewed concerns over Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests. It is believed the North obtained several Soviet-era Golf-class ballistic missile submarines in the mid-1990s. He said the standing committee of the presidential National Security Council would convene Wednesday to discuss the launch.
North Korea frequently makes such threats but tensions on the peninsula have been inflamed by the defection of a high-ranking Pyongyang diplomat.
Authorities should bolster security measures for those who might be targeted by North Korean agents, such as former senior North Korean officials who resettled in the South, members of civic and religious groups assisting North Korean defectors and travelers going overseas.
The large-scale joint military drills conducted by South Korea and the United States will jeopardize peace and stability in Northeast Asia, especially after regional tensions have escalated by the planned deployment of a US missile defense system in South Korea.
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Park said the South Korean military was on high alert and would “vigorously strike back” in the event of any hostile action.
