North Korea also labeled as “laughable” Washington’s new sanctions against Pyongyang, which were signed into law by President Barack Obama on Thursday and are aimed at denying the North the money to develop miniaturized warheads and the long-range missiles required to deliver them.
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Moody’s said in a report on Saturday that the shutdown of an inter-Korean factory park in the DPRK’s border city of Kaesong raised geopolitical risks more or less, but it noted that those risks were not much different from past tensions and that the South Korean economy can afford it.
Japan had eased some earlier sanctions on North Korea after it promised in 2014 to reinvestigate the kidnappings, which are a highly sensitive issue in Japan.
South Korea last week suspended the operation of the Kaesong industrial zone, which had been run jointly with the North for more than a decade.
The DPRK responded a day later by shutting down the last symbol of inter-Korean cooperation project, expelling South Korean workers from there and freezing all of South Korean assets in Kaesong, while cutting off the remaining inter-Korean communications hotlines.
The dispatch is part of a buildup of weaponry in response to North Korea’s recent nuclear test and rocket launch.
OPLAN 5015 is a renewed contingency plan preparing the allies for preemptive attacks against North Korea in the event that signs of a possible North Korean invasion into the South are detected.
The move comes as the United States and South Korea discuss possibly deploying a missile defence system in the South.
A formation of four U.S. F-22 stealth fighters swept through the skies of South Korea on Wednesday as the militaries of South Korea and the US flexed their muscles against North Korea following its nuclear and missile tests.
“The mission demonstrates the strength of the alliance between the USA and the Republic of Korea, and the resolve of both nations to maintain stability on the Korean Peninsula”, said Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the commander of the 7th Air Force.
Pyongyang said the rocket launch was to put a satellite in orbit.
The deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, is opposed by North Korea, China and Russian Federation.
It is unusual for a top South Korean official to publicly touch upon such a government collapse in North Korea because of worries about how sensitive North Korea is to talk of its authoritarian government losing power.
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Pyongyang has also called regular U.S.-South Korea military exercises a rehearsal for a northward invasion.
