Expert terms North Korea’s war threats “bluff”
July 26th, 2010 - 6:33 pm ICT by ANIWashington, July 26 (ANI): An expert on North Korea has described the ongoing US-South Korea war games as a ‘verbal threat’ that won’t amount to much in the long term.
Choi Jin-wook, an academic attached with the Seoul-based Korea Institute of National Unification, said “this is just a verbal threat, it’s just a bluff.”
“The North Koreans are very distressed by these exercises but they’ve already said they’re going to resume six-party talks with US, China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. That’s what they want. They do not want war,” The Christian Science Monitor quoted him, as saying.
North Korea has called for “denuclearisation” of the entire Korean peninsula, a term that is likely to include the banning of all nuclear arms from US ships in the Pacific and even banning nuclear-powered vessels such as the George Washington, the paper reported.
The United States and South Korea began the first of their four day military exercises called “Invincible Spirit,” on Sunday with a flotilla of 20 ships, while North Korea threatened to retaliate and reportedly put its military on alert for war.
The exercises include use of destroyers with Aegis-class counter-missile systems, the latest technology for fending off missiles of the sort that North Korea has tested over the years.
The escalation of tensions began in March 2010 when a South Korean warship ‘Cheonan’ was sunk and 46 sailors died. A team of investigators from South Korea, the United States and several other countries determined in May that North Korea had torpedoed the ship.
North Korea denied the allegation and called the investigation a “fake.” North Korea’s main ally China also rejected the claim. (ANI)
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