Korea on Edge

[Casino67]

Fox News:

May 25, 2010 - 1:10 PM | by: Greg Palkot

The Korean peninsula is on “edge” again, as a new war of words is breaking out between North and South Korea. Veteran Korea watchers tell Fox News they are concerned.

“This is pretty drastic,” Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group told Fox News from Seoul, “everybody is on alert.”

John Swenson-Wright, Korea expert at London’s Chatham House, called the developments a “serious situation.”

After South Korea formally accused the North of torpedoing its ship the Cheonan, killing 46, and described the North as its principal enemy, Pyongyang has retaliated…with rhetoric.

The North Korea state news agency said Tuesday Pyongyang would “sever ties” with the South.

More significant, according to experts, is word from a dissident group that the North’s National Defense Commission has put North Koreans on “full combat alert.”

While the order has not been confirmed, ICG’s Pinkston calls the report “credible.”

And Chatham House’s Swenson-Wright, described the announcement as “significant.”

“A lot is riding on the next few days,” he added.

As expert Swenson-Wright noted, there remain “…a lot of questions.”

One question is why the North would possibly want to trigger a new conflict.

Most point to a possible succession crisis with an ailing Kim Jong-Il apparently looking to pass his post to his son. The military moves, according to Swenson-Wright could be used for “domestic consumption” to bolster the stature of the regime.

The other question is whether these new words could turn into new actions.

So far, according to Seoul-based Pinkston there have no “unusual movements” of North Korean military personnel and no signs of actual mobilization.

However, what Pinkston does note is that in tense situations like this, the risk of “miscalculation” by either side, is very real.

Which is why the region remains tense.
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This isn't going to be resolved anytime soon. I feel it could go either way at the moment.