South Korea warned today that it would retaliate against any provocation from North Korea, a day after the North threatened to tear up the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953. “If North Korea carries out provocations that threaten the lives and safety of South Koreans, our military will carry out strong and resolute retaliations,” Army General Kim Yong-Hyun told reporters.
Kim’s briefing followed North Korea’s announcement on Tuesday that it would “completely declare invalid” the armistice agreement in response to US-led moves to toughen UN sanctions on North Korea after its recent nuclear test.
The announcement, attributed to the spokesman of the North Korean army’s supreme command, also threatened an undefined “strike of justice” against a target of the North’s choosing. Because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, the two Koreas remain technically at war, with the ceasefire agreement theoretically the only barrier to a resumption of full hostilities.
The North has threatened to rip up the agreement before, and it has not prevented repeated and often bloody land and sea border clashes.