DTN News: South Korea To Act On Threats From North Korea

DTN News: South Korea To Act On Threats From North Korea *Source: Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) SEOUL, South Korea - June 15, 2009: South Korea's president ordered his top security officials Sunday to deal "resolutely and squarely" with new North Korean warnings of a nuclear war on the eve of his U.S. visit. In Washington, Vice President Joe Biden said "God only knows" what North Korea wants from the latest showdown. In this image made from television, North Korean military participants listen to a speech during a rally at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, June 15, 2009. Thousands of North Koreans rallied in Pyongyang to reject new U.N. Security Council sanctions passed in response to their country's May 25 nuclear test. President Lee Myung-bak travels to Washington today for talks with President Obama that are expected to focus on the North's rogue nuclear and missile programs. The trip comes after North Korea's Foreign Ministry threatened war with any country that stops its ships on the high seas under new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council in response to its May 25 nuclear test. It also vowed Saturday to "weaponize" all its plutonium and acknowledged a long-suspected uranium enrichment program for the first time. Both plutonium and uranium are key ingredients of atomic bombs. A commentary published Saturday in the North's state-run Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the U.S. was deploying a vast number of nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan. North Korea "is completely within the range of U.S. nuclear attack and the Korean peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of a nuclear war are the highest in the world," it said. Kim Yong-kyu, a spokesman at the U.S. military command in Seoul, denied the allegation, saying the U.S. no longer has nuclear bombs in South Korea. U.S. tactical nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea in 1991 as part of arms reductions following the Cold War. South Korea's 440-ton high-speed missile ship, the Yoon Young Ha, is followed by patrol boats as it sails in the Yellow Sea off the southwestern port of Pyeongtaek on June 15, 2009. The missile ship was deployed close the border two weeks ago amid high cross-border tensions following North Korea's nuclear test last month. Lee summoned his top security ministers Sunday and ordered them to "resolutely and squarely cope" with the North's threats, his office said. The Unification Ministry, responsible for ties with the North, issued a statement demanding that it stop inflaming tension and resume talks with the South. The new U.N. sanctions approved Friday are aimed at depriving the North of the financing used to build its nuclear program. They also authorize searches of North Korean ships suspected of transporting illicit ballistic missile and nuclear materials.