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War Rhetoric Rises Between Koreas

   VOA News 23 December 2010
   South Korean Army's K-9 self-propelled gun fire live rounds during the
   largest  joint  air and ground military exercises on the Seungjin Fire
   Training  Field  in mountainous Pocheon, 20 miles (30 kilometers) from
   the Koreas' heavily fortified border, South Ko

Photo: AP

   South Korean Army's K-9 self-propelled gun fire live rounds during the
   largest  joint  air and ground military exercises on the Seungjin Fire
   Training  Field  in mountainous Pocheon, 20 miles (30 kilometers) from
   the  Koreas'  heavily fortified border, South Korea Thursday, Dec. 23,
   2010. South Korean tanks fired artillery and fighter jets zoomed by to
   drop  bombs  Thursday  in the military's largest air-and-ground firing
   drills  of  the  year,  a  show  of force a month after a deadly North
   Korean artillery attack. (AP Photo/ Park Ji-ho, Yonhap) KOREA OUT

   North  and  South  Korea  have  increased  their  rhetoric against one
   another as the South conducted more military exercises.
   North  Korea said Thursday it is ready to use its nuclear deterrent in
   what  it  called  a  "sacred  war"  if  it is provoked.  Armed forces
   minister  Kim  Yong Chun was quoted by the North Korean news agency as
   saying  that South Korea was deliberately pushing the situation to the
   brink of war.
   South  Korean  President Lee Myung-bak visited with soldiers at a base
   near  the  border  Thursday,  saying  the  South should answer any new
   attack  from the North with a powerful counter-attack. Lee said he had
   been  mistaken  to  think  patience  can  bring  peace  to  the Korean
   peninsula.
   South  Korean  air  and  ground  forces  staged  their latest military
   exercise  earlier Thursday, pounding a snowy valley just 30 kilometers
   from the border with bombs and munitions from tanks, artillery, rocket
   launchers  and  F-15  warplanes. Naval forces continued a third day of
   drills off the country's east coast.
   A  U.S.  State  Department  spokesman  said  Thursday the region needs
   constructive actions, not heated rhetoric from North Korea.
   South  Korean  military  officials  said  the  combined air and ground
   exercise at a firing range at Pocheon was the largest of its kind ever
   conducted  during  the winter months. Local residents and a handful of
   reporters  looked  on  as  800 troops with heavy weapons pounded their
   targets for almost three-quarters of an hour.
   South  Korean  officials  said  Wednesday that the exercise, which was
   much  larger  than  previous  drills  at  the  base,  was organized in
   response  to  North Korea's artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island last
   month. Two soldiers and two civilians were killed in the attack, which
   came during a South Korean live-firing exercise.
   The  South resumed live firing exercises from the island for the first
   time   Monday,   defying   threats  from  the  North  of  overwhelming
   retaliation.  The  exercise  ended  without  incident  and  the  North
   declared it was "not worth" its trouble to respond.
   [
   Some information for this report provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.]

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