Seoul threatens Pyongyang with pre-emptive strike

Wed, 20 Jan 2010

South Korea says it will launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea, should Pyongyang indicate an intention to carry out a nuclear attack.

South Korea's Defense Minister Kim Tae-Young told a forum in Seoul on Wednesday that it will be too late to cope with a North Korean nuclear attack if it really happens.

"We would have to strike right away if we detected a clear intention to attack (South Korea) with nuclear weapons," Yonhap news agency quoted Tae-young as saying.

"It would be too late and the damage would be too big if — in the case of a North Korean nuclear attack — we had to cope with the attack."

The defense minister had made similar remarks in 2008, when he was chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Tension has been on the rise on the Korean peninsula since the UN Security Council stepped up sanctions against Pyongyang in April. The move was triggered by North Korea's test-launch of missiles.

International efforts to resolve the stand-off between the two neighbors have so far made little progress.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116631§ionid=351020405.