North Korea may fire short-range missiles across its disputed sea border with South Korea to bolster its sabre-rattling campaign against the Seoul government, media reports said Friday. Seoul officials believe this is the likeliest form of provocation from the communist state, according to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper and Yonhap news agency.
The North, which is fiercely hostile to Seoul's conservative government, announced last week it has scrapped all peace agreements with the South including one covering the Yellow Sea borderline.
Its official media has repeatedly warned of a possible armed clash. Pyongyang is also apparently preparing for a separate long-range missile test-launch, according to US and South Korean officials this week. Washington has said any such launch would be "provocative." Chosun said Seoul security officials at a meeting on January 30 - the day the North scrapped its pacts - concluded that a missile launch over the Northern Limit Line was the likeliest provocation.
The North refuses to recognise the NLL, which was drawn unilaterally by United Nations forces after the 1950-53 war. The area was the scene of bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002. "Pyongyang may use the logic that South Korean leaflets being sent to the North is on a par with North Korea firing missiles at the South," Chosun quoted an unidentified official as saying.
Rights activists periodically use balloons to launch leaflets across the border fiercely criticising the North's regime. They plan another launch to mark leader Kim Jong-Il's birthday on February 16, and Chosun said the North could retaliate with some kind of military action.
Comments
Comments are closed.