Global Security Newswire

South Korea's defense minister warned North Korea today that his nation would attack first if it felt a nuclear strike was imminent, the New York Times reported (see GSN, Jan. 15).

Defense Minister Kim Tae-young's statement about the possibility of the pre-emptive use of conventional force is in line with the South's military policy regarding a possible nuclear attack from North Korea, ministry officials confirmed.

"A nuclear attack from the North would cause too much damage for us to react," Kim said during a security event in Seoul. "We must detect signs and if there is a clear sign of attack, we must immediately strike. Unless it's a cause where we would sustain an attack but could still counterattack, we must strike first."

Even while engaged in six-nation talks aimed at shuttering its atomic operations, North Korea has made progress in its pursuit of a nuclear-weapon capability. It detonated its second nuclear device in May and the month before carried out what was widely thought to be a test of its long-range missile technology. The country last year also announced that it had resumed plutonium processing and had reached the last development stage for enriching uranium.

Two years ago as chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, Kim gave a similar warning to Pyongyang. The two Koreas fought a war against each other from 1950-1953 and to this day do not have a peace treaty, merely an armistice agreement (Choe Sang-hun, New York Times, Jan. 20).

Kim's statement follows Pyongyang's threat last week to decimate South Korea in a "holy war" as punishment for its alleged contingency plan for handling crises in the North, the Korea Herald reported (Kim Ji-hyun, Korea Herald, Jan. 21).

Following 10 years of thawing relations between the two nations, ties worsened two years ago in the wake of conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's election, the Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, a new report by the Seoul-sponsored Korea Institute for National Unification forecasts a military takeover and widespread revolts, a significant number of deaths and defections following the death of aging North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who is thought to have experienced a stroke in 2008. The think tank in its "Study on Unification" postulated that Kim would be dead by the end of 2012, though it did not detail its evidence for this prediction.

A power vacuum is likely to ensue if Kim does not have a succession arrangement in place, the report found. Kim is thought to be preparing his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, to assume the leadership position (Kwang-Tae Kim, Associated Press/Time, Jan. 20).

Elsewhere, the U.S. State Department announced yesterday that officials would visit Japan and South Korea in the beginning of February to talk over how to relaunch the stalled six-nation nuclear talks, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

The multilateral negotiations involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States were last held in December 2008 in Beijing.

"The hope is we'll be meeting with senior interlocutors," Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said of his visit to Japan, adding that he expects to meet with officials from the Foreign and Defense ministries and others in South Korea.

"We think that the appropriate next step is for North Korea to return to the six-party talks and to resume deliberations in this context," Campbell said. "And within that context, it's possible to have bilateral interactions and other discussions, not just with the United States but with other countries" (Hwang Doo-hyong, Yonhap News Agency, Jan. 20).