Seoul: North Korea's military today threatened unspecified countermeasures after South Korea refused to apologise for remarks by its top general, a news report said, as cross-border tensions escalated.
"We will take military countermeasures," the North's chief delegate to inter-Korean military talks, Lieutenant General Kim Yong-Chol, was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency in a notice sent to the South. There was no official response to the comments. Media reports said the North's powerful military might close the border to cut off exchanges.
The communist state had demanded an apology for remarks made last week by South Korea's new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), General Kim Tae-Young. It interpreted these as hinting at a preemptive military strike. Seoul's Defence Ministry yesterday rejected the apology demand and urged the North to stop raising tensions.
"The South's reply made yesterday was nothing but shenanigans," Kim Yong-Chol was quoted as saying by Yonhap.
A Defence Ministry spokesman confirmed that a message had been received from the North but declined to specify the contents. "It is not yet clear what the North meant by military countermeasures. Related agencies are now analysing its contents," a senior government official was quoted as saying on the website of Seoul's Dong-A Ilbo newspaper.
Some officials said Pyongyang may halt all exchanges with Seoul, according to Dong-A. The military controls border crossings.
