About 28,500 US troops are in South Korea to help deter potential aggression from North Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with armistice, not a peace treaty.
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South Korea denies they were kidnapped.
It provides a trove of resources for academics and other researchers, ranging from the earliest editions of Rodong Sinmun, the ruling party’s newspaper, on microfiche, to math textbooks printed on brown parchment paper.
China’s Xinhua added, “Although Seoul and Washington claimed that their drills are defensive, the exercises that simulate an all-out-attack by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will make Pyongyang more aggressive and will worsen the already fragile and unstable situation on the Korean peninsula”.
“It is regrettable that North Korea threatens to conduct a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the South”, responded South Korean unification ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee – a rather mild retort, given what the North Koreans are threatening to do, although the frequency of their nuclear threats probably creates a certain degree of tired resignation in South Korean officials.
The exercise takes place nearly exactly one year after North Korean troops shelled South Korean territory and only days after South Korea welcomed the highest-ranking North Korean official defector in decades.
The latest exercises come as tensions are high on the peninsula.
North Korean forces are “ready to mount a pre-emptive retaliatory strike at all enemy attack groups involved in Ulchi Freedom Guardian”, he said, referring to the exercise by its official name.
Pyongyang has made similar nuclear strike threats in the past, but actual retaliation to South Korea-US military drills has largely been restricted to firing ballistic missiles into the sea. The secretive nature of North Korea and its nuclear program mean that experts are not entirely sure how well developed Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons are.
On Monday, North Korea’s Red Cross sent a letter to its South Korean counterpart asking for the women to be sent back, saying they had been kidnapped by the South, according to Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency.
What comes next on the Korean peninsula?
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Many analysts said Thae’s defection was an embarrassment to the North Korean government of leader Kim Jong Un, but would not weaken the unity of the country’s elite class. The incident led South Korea to blast propaganda on loudspeakers across the border into the North. “It is highly likely that North Korea will make various attempts to prevent further defections and unrest among its people”. Pyongyang’s state media called him “human scum” and a criminal who had been ordered home for a series of alleged criminal acts, including sexually assaulting a minor.
