South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday called on his country’s Marines to “respond massively and without hesitation” to any provocation from North Korea.
“If the enemy provokes us, apply the principle of act first and report later, and respond decisively, massively and without hesitation to completely destroy the enemy’s will,” Yoon said during a visit to a Marine Corps unit on the border with North Korea.
Recently, nuclear-armed North Korea called South Korea its “main enemy,” shut down organizations intended to discuss reunification and facilitate relations between the two sides of the peninsula, and threatened with war if there was “even a thousandth of a millimeter” of territorial intrusion by South Korea.
And on Friday, its leader Kim Jong Un repeated that Pyongyang would not hesitate to “end” South Korea if his country was attacked.
South Korea, he said, is “our most dangerous and first enemy”.
For his part, the new South Korean president, known for his hawkish positions, has since coming to power in 2022 strengthened military cooperation with the United States and Japan, including with increasingly important maneuvers, to counter threats from Pyongyang.
He had previously made statements like the one on Saturday last month and in December, during a visit to another frontline military unit.
On Saturday, New Year’s Day in Asia, he also inspected a multiple launch missile system and said South Korea was “fully prepared to respond immediately in the event of enemy provocation.”
Beyond the increasingly threatening verbal exchanges, the two sides have in recent months strengthened their security at the border and conducted live-fire maneuvers along the border.
Yoon Suk Yeol also accuses the “irrational” northern government of wanting to increase provocations before the April 10 elections in the South.
Mr. Yoon, who came to power pledging to toughen his tone towards Pyongyang, hopes that his conservative party will regain the parliamentary majority that it lost in 2016 and has not regained since.
North Korea plays provocations before every election in the South, hoping to cause problems in the country.