NK vows retaliation if S. Korea conducts live-fire drills near border

Korea Times ^ | 12-17-2010

[TigerLikesRooster]

NK vows retaliation if S. Korea conducts live-fire drills near border

North Korea vowed Friday to retaliate with greater firepower if South Korea goes ahead with its planned live-fire drills from the frontline island that has been devastated by North Korean shelling.

"Second and third self-defensive blows that cannot be predicted will be dealt" if South Korea conducts the one-day drills scheduled between Saturday and Tuesday, the North's military said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"The intensity and range of the firepower will create a situation more serious than one on Nov. 23" when the North shelled the Yeonpyeong island in the Yellow Sea and killed two marines and two civilians, the North said.

North Korea fired about 170 shells to attack the island, prompting the South to fire back but with no clear success in retaliation. South Korea has vowed to make the North pay back.

"The South Korean puppet warmongers must immediately cancel the provocative coastal live-fire drills planned on Yeonpyeong," the unnamed head of the North's colonel-level military delegation said.

The KCNA said the warning was delivered to the South's defense ministry at around noon on Friday, calling the sea surrounding the small island part of "our sacred territorial waters."

[TigerLikesRooster]

P!

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Misspelled a word, they did. “Scared” territorial waters it should have read.

[Venturer]

What to do: Call their bluff, or knuckle under.

Doesn’t really matter I suppose, they will keep pushing until someone push’s back.

[blam]

Saddle up boys.

[Uncle Ike]

” one-day drills scheduled between Saturday and Tuesday “

Looks like it’s gonna be a white-knuckle weekend for ya, my FRiend... :(

Keep close to the shelter....

[AmericanInTokyo]

They are already going bat-shit live on Radio Pyongyang 2135 localFriday- as I listen. Excoriating Japan as part of it. I bet Obama, through the Joint Chiefs, forces the South Koreans to back down at the last moment, and causes them to blink. He will be getting the Hershey Squirts right about now...amateur, appeasing empty suit..Bill Richardson will have ‘such a deal’, too.

[ZX12R]

Bill Richardson will have ‘such a deal’, too.

I bet you're right. Richardson will give the norks whatever they want. That's why he and CNN are there. To cover the grand deal accomplished by our gansta-in-chief's herald. Any moment now, the news will declare the wondrous and miraculous avoidance of nuclear war.

[circlecity]

Looks like they are eyeball to eyeball - I wonder who will blink.

[TigerLikesRooster]

There will be many people watching what ChongWaDae will do. If they back down, whether they do it on their own or are pressured by Obama, they had better be on extended foreign trips for the next few months until spring.

[jhpigott]

“The KCNA said the warning was delivered to the South’s defense ministry at around noon on Friday, calling the sea surrounding the small island part of “our sacred territorial waters.”

I think it would be wise to take the NORKs threats seriously. Their propoganda mouthpiece (KNCA) says bat-$hit crazy stuff all the time. But if you look here they have used the military hotline to pass along this message to the ROK, just like they did before the Nov 23rd attack.

Anybody want to play a game of geopolitical chicken?

[ThunderSleeps]

Call their bluff.

[TigerLikesRooster]

They followed it up with late afternoon broadcast(a little after 5pm local time) saying that they delivered the message in question at 12:20 pm. Must be their way of saying, “Don't say we have not warned you.”

[jhpigott]

You obviously know the region better than most all of us here . . . how often do the NORKs use the military hotline? And when they use it, is the information passed along generally speaking more reliable than the dribble we usually here from the KNCA?

[TigerLikesRooster]

how often do the NORKs use the military hotline?

Not often. That is, they don't abuse it. So it is more than usual bombastic rhetoric.

[Uncle Ike]

” But if you look here they have used the military hotline to pass along this message to the ROK, just like they did before the Nov 23rd attack. “

I remember somebody - maybe one of you two - posting yesterday (or the day before) that NK had shut down the Military Hotline, as well as the UN Hotline at Panmujong...

Did I misunderstand, or did NK reactivate the link for the purposes of this exchange??

If the latter, that’s even more ominous......

[SpaceBar]

If anybody wants some cheap entertainment, do an archive freep title search with the words “korea vows”. A whole lot of vowing without much follow-up going on over there.

[TigerLikesRooster]

I think the message could have been faxed instead of being conveyed verbally on hotline. They have a fax machine working at Panmunjom, separate from hotline. The article you mentioned said that NK periodically turn it off as a protest.

I think the fax machine was working today.

[jhpigott]

#DPRK radio: “Provocative shell firing plan from Yeonpyeong against our Republic’s sacred territorial waters must be withdrawn immediately.”
about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck

http://twitter.com/w7voa

[gogogodzilla]

I just wish South Korea would ‘s@#t, or get off the pot’. They’ve been hemming and hawing about these dang live-fire drills for the last 3 frigging weeks.