Photo: Thomas Lovelock OIS via Agence France-Presse “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.
France Media Agency in Seoul
10:38 a.m.
- Asia
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 at 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 bodies meant to discuss reunification and facilitate relations between the two parts of the peninsula, and threatened war if there was “even a thousandth of a millimeter” of territorial intrusion by South Korea.
And on Friday, its leader Kim Jong Un reiterated 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 already made statements like the one on Saturday last month and in December, during a visit to another military unit on the front line.
On Saturday, New Year's Day in Asia, he also inspected a multiple launch missile system and declared that 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 this 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 get tougher on Pyongyang, hopes that his conservative party will regain the parliamentary majority it lost in 2016 and has not regained since.
North Korea uses provocations before every election in the South, hoping to cause trouble in the country.