South Korea says it has detected preparations by North Korea to blow up its sections of inter-Korean roads. Tensions have been soaring between the two countries in recent weeks.
South Korean officials said on Monday that they had gathered intelligence indicating that the North was preparing to demolish its half of roads that connect the two countries.
“They have installed screens on the road and are working behind those screens, preparing to blow up the roads,” Lee Sung Joon, a spokesperson for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.
He said the operation could take place as soon as Monday.
The move follows weeks of soaring tensions on the Korean peninsula. North Korea has accused South Korea of using drones to drop propaganda leaflets over its territory three times, and threatened to respond with force if it happens again.
Agreed - NK likes to saber rattle a lot. This is just more of the same.
One thing I have to begrudingly admit - they are really smart at approaching the edge of the line (to a nation ending war), without crossing it.
Also, it’s true that South Korea is not a nuclear armed State, but I can see why NK might sometimes feel like the opposite. South Korea hosts nukes from the US (for the defense of Korea) and is under the nuclear umbrella of the US (where the US promises to use nuclear weapons to defend South Korea if it’s attacked by a nuclear armed opponent).
More saliently, South Korea has successfully launched into outer space - this is the same rocket technology needed to launch an ICBM. So even if the US broke away, South Korea could go nuclear very quickly.
These are all part of NK’s calculation when it considers how far it’s willing to go in saber rattling.