South Korea vows to respond to 'provocation'
South Korea pledges to "deal sternly" with provocative acts from North Korea after raising security threat level
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Thursday, 28, May 2009 05:14
South Korea has said it will "deal sternly" with provocative acts from North Korea after its neighbour tore up a 56-year-old armistice.
Yesterday Pyongyang warned of "unimaginable merciless punishment" as tensions in the region were ratcheted further up in a chain of events begun by Monday's nuclear test.
The underground test, which drew universal international condemnation, was followed by several short-range missile launches, while the north said it was no longer bound by a 1953 armistice that ended fighting in the Korean war.
South Korea, technically still at war with the north, responded on Thursday by raising its military alert level for the peninsula, warning of a 'serious threat'.
Almost 30,000 US troops are also based in and around South Korea, supplementing a 670,000-strong South Korean army.
The raised security level is the highest since North Korea's last nuclear test in 2006.
"Surveillance over the north will be stepped up, with more aircraft and personnel mobilised," explained Seoul's defence ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae.
"We are maintaining a tight defence posture to prevent the north's military provocations. The military will deal sternly with provocative acts."
This week US secretary of state Hillary Clinton confirmed that Washington would 'always honour' its defence commitments to Japan and South Korea.
Next week the United Nations security council is due to impose new sanctions upon the north over its nuclear tests.
South Korean news agencies have been reporting that North Korea has also begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel at its plutonium separation plant at Yongbyon, claims backed up by satellite imagery.