Koreans raise stakes

SEOUL, South Korea – Military tension on the Korean peninsula rose Thursday after North Korea threatened to attack any South Korean ships entering its waters and Seoul held anti-submarine drills in response to the March sinking of a navy vessel blamed on Pyongyang.

Separately, the chief U.S. military commander in South Korea criticized the North over the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in which 46 sailors died, telling the communist country to stop its aggressive actions.

North Korean reaction was swift. The military declared it would scrap accords with the South designed to prevent armed clashes at their maritime border, including the cutting of a military hot line, and warned of “prompt physical strikes” if any South Korean ships enter what the North says are its waters in a disputed area off the west coast of the peninsula.

A multinational team of investigators said May 20 that a North Korean torpedo sank the 1,200-ton ship. Seoul announced punitive measures, including slashing trade and resuming anti-Pyongyang propaganda over radio and loudspeakers aimed at the North. North Korea has denied attacking the ship, which sank near disputed western waters where the Koreas have fought three bloody sea battles since 1999.

Off the west coast, 10 South Korean warships, including a 3,500-ton destroyer, fired artillery and other guns and dropped anti-submarine bombs during a one-day exercise to boost readiness, the navy said.

South Korea also is planning two major military drills with the U.S. by July in a display of force intended to deter aggression by North Korea, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The sinking of the warship clearly caught South Korea – which has a far more modern and advanced military than its impoverished rival – off guard. South Korean and U.S. militaries are taking pains to warn the North that such an embarrassment will not happen again.

Despite the tensions, most analysts feel the prospect of war remains remote because North Korea knows what’s at stake.

“I don’t think they’re really interested in going to war,” said Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank. “Because if it’s all-out war, then I’m convinced it would mean the absolute destruction” of North Korea. “And their country would cease to exist.”