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North Korea Declares 'State of War' with Seoul
[An Nahar]  North Korea on Saturday declared it had entered into a "state of war" with South Korea and warned Seoul and Washington that any provocation would swiftly escalate into an all-out nuclear conflict.Once you push stupid to a certain point there's no further you can go. The United States said it took the announcement "seriously," even though it followed a familiar pattern, while South Korea largely dismissed it as an old threat dressed in new clothing. It was the latest in a string of dire-sounding pronouncements from Pyongyang that have been matched by tough warnings from Seoul and Washington, fueling international concern that the situation might spiral out of control. "As of now, inter-Korea relations enter a state of war and all matters between the two Koreas will be handled according to wartime protocol," the North said in a government statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency. "The long-standing situation of the Korean peninsula being neither at peace nor at war is finally over," the statement said, adding that any U.S. or South Korean provocation would trigger a "full-scale conflict and a nuclear war." The two Koreas have technically remained at war for the past six decades because the 1950-53 Korean War concluded with an armistice rather than a peace treaty. The North had announced earlier this month that it was ripping up the armistice and other bilateral peace pacts signed with Seoul in protest against South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises. Voiding the ceasefire theoretically opened the way to a resumption of hostilities, although the armistice was approved by the U.N. General Assembly, and both the U.N. and South Korea repudiated the North's unilateral withdrawal. Posted by: Fred 2013-03-31 |
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