N. Korea vows to scrap ceasefire if South, US continue military drill

North Korea has threatened to scrap the armistice which ended the 1950-53 Korean War if the South and US continue with an ongoing military drill.

?We will completely nullify the Korean armistice,? the
North?s KCNA news agency said, quoting the Korean People?s Army
(KPA) Supreme Command spokesman.

Pyongyang warned it will cancel the Korean War ceasefire
agreement on March 11 if the US and its ?puppet South Korea?
do not halt their joint drills.

?We will be suspending the activities of the KPA
representative office at Panmunjom (truce village) that had been
tentatively operated by our army as the negotiating body to
establish a peace regime on the Korean peninsula,? KCNA quoted
the spokesman as saying.

The announcement from Pyongyang comes as South Korean and US
troops launched their annual joint military drills on Friday. Some
10,000 US troops and 200,000 South Korean soldiers are currently
taking part in the exercises.

North Korea had previously warned the US commander in South
Korea of ?miserable destruction? if the US military went ahead with
the two-month-long exercise, Yonhap News Agency reported on
Friday.

The North and South are still technically at war after the civil
conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

During a visit in Qatar on Tuesday, US Secretary of State John
Kerry said he hoped North Korea would take part in negotiations
over its nuclear weapons program rather than threaten to end the
armistice.

Pyongyang?s threat follows reports that Washington and Beijing
have drafted a series of sanctions to be circulated among UN
Security Council members in the wake of North Korea?s third nuclear
test last month. Details of the tentative sanctions remained murky,
with UN diplomats telling Reuters on condition of anonymity they
hoped to receive the draft resolution at Tuesday?s Security Council
session.

On Tuesday, Russia?s Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said
that Russia supported the latest round of draft sanctions against
North Korea, and a resolution could be voted on as early as
Thursday.

The US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice also said Tuesday that
the draft resolution would significantly expand sanctions against
North Korea.

However, some say that sanctions are neither a useful nor a
necessary weapon against the regime. Erich Weingartner, who has
recently returned from a trip to North Korea, says ?I expected
to see more hardship? at least in the city you have a huge number
of new buildings?new trams and buses?you have people using
cellphones everywhere?I?ve seen the kind of prosperity this time
that I?ve never seen before.?

The new round of sanctions look to again target North Korean
diplomats, impacting their ability to carry out bulk cash transfers
among other limitations- all of which are being implemented with
speed. Weingartner went on to say ?I think this is all cosmetic.
This is the United States trying to put some pressure on and not
really having a policy on where to go next?North Korea is already
the most sanctioned country in the world. I think the sanctions
have failed and are going to continue to fail.?

The United States and other members of the international
community have viewed North Korea?s third nuclear test as putting
the isolated state one step closer towards developing a nuclear
weapon which can target America.

North Korea has framed its nuclear weapon?s program as a counter
to US aggression which dates back to the 1950s war.

In February, a source close to the highest levels of government
in Pyongyang told Reuters that ?a fourth and fifth nuclear test
and a rocket launch could be conducted soon, possibly this
year.? The source continued that the fourth test would be much
larger than the third, with an equivalent of 10 kilotons of
TNT.

Despite the threat to end the ceasefire, North Korea is not yet
ready to pursue a path of war, Glyn Ford, an expert on East Asia
and former MEP told RT.

?There?s a difference between saying you no longer recognize
an armistice and actually starting shooting again. They?re not
quite the same thing,? he said.

Ford believes that with the latest satellite and nuclear tests,
the Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-Un has effectively shown
his strength to the country?s powerful military, decreasing the
likelihood that further tests will be carried out.

?I think he [Kim Jong-Un] is more likely to be turning away
once we get through the next month or so towards looking at
economic modernization rather than repeating the missile and the
nuclear tests. I could be wrong, of course. It?s very difficult to
read North Korea, but it seems to me that that?s where the thinking
is.?

As for the actual threat of military action against North Korea,
Erich Weingartner ? who is
also editor at CanKor, a Canadian website following North
Korea ?? believes no one in the region or outside would risk a
full-on military confrontation with Pyongyang. That includes the
Chinese, the Japanese and the South Koreans.

Although China is onboard supporting the latest round of
sanctions to be announced by the end of the week, Weingartner
thinks this is simple diplomacy at work: ?China doesn?t want to
have the United States sideline them, [so] they are playing ball at
the Security Council. But at the same time they keep emphasizing
that what they?re interested in is regional stability. So whatever
sanctions they agreed to?they don?t want to see a collapse of the
North-Korean regime.? With Japan and South Korea playing
extremely important roles as regional business partners to China,
it is ?playing a very delicate tightrope game?, Weingartner
says.

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Article source: http://rt.com/news/north-korea-ceasefire-drills-850/

Source: http://militarynews.us/n-korea-vows-to-scrap-ceasefire-if-south-us-continue-military-drill/

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